B-roll, photos and soundbites in the Dropbox
News — CHICAGO – April 2, 2025 – At the start of the pandemic, Iona Woolmington was installing artwork at a contemporary art museum in downtown Chicago when she first began having trouble in the bathroom. Blood in her stool prompted the then 35-year-old to see a doctor, leading to a devastating diagnosis: stage 3 rectal cancer.
This was not Woolmington’s first encounter with cancer. In 2014, the cartoonist and vegetable farmer originally from North Bennington, Vt., underwent surgery to remove a cancerous spot on her face caused by early-stage melanoma. After five years cancer-free, Woolmington found herself back at the doctor’s office, but this time with concerns about how chemotherapy and radiation would impact her fertility.
“Iona’s tumor was located deep within her pelvis, which is a complicated area,” said , medical oncologist with the “Chemotherapy and radiation would be necessary to shrink the tumor before surgical removal. However, these treatments would likely impact her egg quality, damage her ovaries, and trigger premature menopause. Given all the difficulties ahead for Iona, it was important for her to explore her options.”
Before beginning cancer treatment, Dr. Mulcahy referred Woolmington to specialists at the , who recommended a fertility-sparing solution.
First, Woolmington had the option to remove and freeze her eggs for later use in fertility treatments such as in vitro fertilization (IVF). Then, a surgical procedure known as ovarian transposition could protect her ovaries from the damaging effects of radiation by moving the organ out of harm’s way.
“When we see a patient early on, the goal is to do as much as we can to potentially preserve the possibility of having a child down the road,” said , chief of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at Northwestern Medicine. “Iona was young, and so we knew the eggs we got were going to be high quality. By examining the ovaries with ultrasound, we can estimate the potential number of eggs available for egg banking, and we were pleased to see that things looked good for Iona. Egg banking in combination with ovarian transposition put Iona on track for more control of her future reproductive health.”
“During ovarian transposition, we take the ovaries, which are normally located in the pelvis, and move them into the abdomen as far away from the field of radiation as possible to avoid any kind of injury,” said , chief of minimally invasive gynecologic surgery at Northwestern Medicine. “By doing so, we protect the patient from premature menopause and the associated risks of cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, cognitive decline, and even early death.”
After successfully freezing her eggs and moving her ovaries out of the field of radiation, Woolmington began chemotherapy and radiation to treat her primary tumor. Six months later, doctors determined she had responded well enough to treatment to become a candidate for a colon resection.
In Feb. 2021, surgeons removed the cancerous part of Woolmington’s rectum and sewed the healthy parts back together. While her gastrointestinal tract healed, Woolmington was given a temporary ileostomy bag to prevent waste from passing onward to the large intestine and rectum.
“For patients with colorectal cancer, chemotherapy doesn’t typically cause you to lose your hair, so the ileostomy bag was the most concrete change in my experience with cancer,” said Woolmington. “I was initially very concerned about living with my ileostomy,but ended up being very wrong about how much of an impact it had on my day-to-day life. That made me want to write about it.”
To raise awareness for a disease that is becoming increasingly common in people under the age of 50, and to illustrate the ways young adults are uniquely impacted by cancer, Woolmington created under the pen name, Iona Fox. The comic explores navigating a cancer diagnosis in a pandemic, its impact on dating and relationships, and adjusting to life with a stoma.
Today, Woolmington is cancer-free, and her ovarian function is normal.
“The fact that my medical team not only helped me beat cancer, but also helped me come out of it with my 35-year-old body still intact, with the door still open on parenthood… there are no words to express my appreciation for that,” said Woolmington.
Available for interviews:
- Iona Woolmington – patient
- Magdy Milad, MD – chief of minimally invasive gynecologic surgery at Northwestern Medicine
- Emily Jungheim, MD – chief of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at Northwestern Medicine
- Mary Mulcahy, MD – medical oncology at Lurie Cancer Center at Northwestern Medicine
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