EILEEN Puleo was happily getting on with life when she began to feel strangely bloated all the time. Irritating though it was, the inflammation was the same kind of niggle as an infection or a swollen toe would be. Only when swelling got to the point when she was having trouble getting her trousers on, did she take herself off to the doctors.

But mother-of-three Eileen never felt a twinge of anything more painful, no premonitions of cancer or a deep, dark knowledge that something deadly was lurking.

She had no reason to suspect the worst when she was taken into the hospital for a biopsy last November. She'd been getting bouts of the abdominal swelling and her GP thought it could be endometritis, an inflammatory infection in the womb.

So Eileen, 40, was utterly bewildered when doctors told her they'd found what has been dubbed as the "silent cancer" in her system.

She was sent to North Tyneside Hospital and later to Queen Elizabeth Gynaecology Centre in Gateshead where experts thought her bloating could be due to an ovarian cyst that had become twisted.

She was taken into theatre for removal of the cyst - and they found the cancer which had spread to the uterus, the fallopian tubes and a lining near her bowels. Though they extracted the ovarian tumour and gave her a full hysterectomy, she is now dealing with a secondary cancer - a typical development from ovarian cancer - around her bowel.

While most cancer sufferers hear the deadly words and have a name put to their deepest fears before the operation, Eileen got it all afterwards.

"I don't know if it's worse knowing before or after. It's no less shocking or upsetting. And the strangest thing is, people assume if you have cancer, you will feel terribly ill, but I felt like a healthy, normal woman," says Eileen, from North Shields, whose children are aged 17, 14, and ten.

"The first thing I did when they told me was to ask if I could have done something to prevent it from happening, like taken a test or avoided something. They said no."

An onslaught of chaotic emotions followed after the devastating news.

She'd been gliding through life with cancer in her system, yet there was no outward hint of physical illness. Even a smear couldn't have picked it up. And what was ovarian cancer anyway? She'd heard a million and one things about cervical cancer but she didn't even know you could get cancer of the ovaries.

"I never felt any pain at all and I hadn't even heard of ovarian cancer. I think it is one of these cancers that women aren't as aware about as they could be. We tend to hear a lot about cervical cancer but ovarian cancer is not very well publicised.

"You can go and have your smear test and you can check your breast for lumps, but ovarian cancer is incredibly difficult to detect and there's no routine check for women at all. They can catch it by measuring your blood count, but even that's not conclusive.

"I also assumed that kind of cancer was something older women got. I was perfectly healthy and I had no history of it in my family. I've become better educated about it since though, and I even know of women in their 20s who have had it."

Eileen says there have been plenty of terrifying moments since. The first thing she did when she got home was read up on every last piece of information on ovarian cancer from the Internet. But knowledge in her case didn't necessarily equal power.

Statistically, ovarian cancer can look rather bleak and the stark facts made Eileen feel hugely panicked. But then again, she's never been one to dwell on the dark side of things and she pulled herself out of the her lows with the help of Sicilian-born husband Alfredo, who owns Sorrento's restaurant in Whitley Bay.

"I did have some low moments when I thought 'this can't be happening' but my husband's been so supportive and positive, it's made things a lot easier. The statistics did really upset me, especially the five-year survival rate, but I thought if I keep thinking like this, I'm really going to go downhill. And you can't afford to go downhill when you've got children."

One of Eileen's worst experiences was losing her hair after chemotherapy. She tried wearing a wig but felt silly in it, as if everyone knew it wasn't her hair, and swapped to a hat until her hair grew back.

But she's never got caught up in thinking "why me?" although she's defied every statistic in contracting ovarian cancer - as someone's who's young, has three children and is on the Pill, she should be a minimum risk for this type of cancer.

"It's pointless thinking 'why me?' and I've never thought it. But when I was told about the bowel cancer, I did think it was very unfair that I was having to go through it again. In some ways, I was more devastated."

The cancer may have rocked her confidence but she still had to be there for the children and keep their world as normal as possible.

Eileen has recently visited Sicilian relatives on her own for the first time ever. Who knows when she'll see them again? She fends off the more morbid thoughts and has a real lust for life.

"I really appreciate life. It gives you such a different perspective on things," she says.

Ironically, Eileen had never been one of these women to shy away from smear tests. After giving birth to three children, she was hardly going to feel squeamish about the routine check-up and she'd go to the doctor's surgery as regular as clockwork.

But, while cervical cancer victims like Coronation Street's Alma can be alerted to the deadly disease with a simple smear test, women with ovarian cancer have no way of preventing the worst.

Though there's nowhere to hide from this cruelly silent cancer, Eileen feels she's got the strength and support to respond to it positively, and with courage. She's had the ready emotional help of a great group of women in support group, Ovacome, who were invaluable in getting her though the darker times.

Best of all, she's got her three children to live and care for. And she's determined to see them grow up. Eileen's not giving in.

For more information ring Ovacome on 07071 781-861 or for the North-East branch ring Margaret Borthwick on 0191-3875363. E- mail: ovacome@ovacome.org.uk