“Honor yourself, care for yourself and don’t feel ashamed to be selfish with your time. This also includes freeing yourself from always feeling like you have to be a hero. There’s a time and a place for tying that cape around your neck, but you also have the right to wallow as needed; just make sure you don’t set up camp there.”
“Being an outsider, you assume the hardest thing a cancer patient goes through is the treatment itself…but in my opinion, it’s not. The hardest part is what comes next…when treatment stops, but you still look sick, you still have to go to appointment after appointment, you fear a recurrence and your life that once was no longer exists and you have to put the pieces back together in a way that’s a bit different.”
“If there is an opportunity for me to share my story or talk with someone, I always do. The biggest thing is to share our stories. Anyone who follows me on Facebook or Instagram knows that I’ll share because knowledge is power- if someone has a family member going through it, they can see me as another resource.”
I’d also like to help ovarian cancer become a disease that is ruled out, rather than ruled in. So many women spend months to years fighting to get a diagnosis. It shouldn’t be so difficult.
"The first diagnosis was the hardest moment, the doctor said I basically had six months. I have a little girl, which at that moment was young (almost 3 years old). My husband, who is very strong, was devastated. It was a hard hard moment to get through. But after that, after rock bottom, all we had left was to stand up, so I did it, WE did it, as a family. And 3 years later, I’m still here living my life, seeing my little princess grow, and getting thanking God for letting me be here."
“If there is an opportunity for me to share my story or talk with someone, I always do. The biggest thing is to share our stories. Anyone who follows me on Facebook or Instagram knows that I’ll share because knowledge is power- if someone has a family member going through it, they can see me as another resource.”
"The first diagnosis was the hardest moment, the doctor said I basically had six months. I have a little girl, which at that moment was young (almost 3 years old). My husband, who is very strong, was devastated. It was a hard hard moment to get through. But after that, after rock bottom, all we had left was to stand up, so I did it, WE did it, as a family. And 3 years later, I’m still here living my life, seeing my little princess grow, and getting thanking God for letting me be here."
“What I thought was just a sudden weight lost, turned out to be something more serious. My stomach was bloated a lot at the time. Eventually, I went to the emergency room. The doctors thought I was pregnant because of how my stomach looked. They didn't see or hear a heart beat, which is when they discovered the fluid. That explained where all the bloating came from. They drained all the fluid out of my stomach. They filled up 6 1/2 tubes.”
I wish that more people understood how dangerous OVCA is. That is has a frighteningly high recurrence rate, and that there is NO FORMAL DIAGNOSTIC TEST. A Pap smear tests for cervical cancer, not ovarian. Because of this, you have to stay extra vigilant. If you feel off, ask your doctor for a transvaginal ultrasound. If you still feel off, ask them for a CA-125.
"I wish people knew about the symptoms, the seriousness of the disease and overall just felt more comfortable talking about ovaries and gyn stuff in general. I've heard so many stories of women not truly knowing their family history because their relatives called it 'lady cancer' or something else. After my second diagnosis my genetic mutation was upgraded from a "variant of unknown significance" to BRCA2. I found that almost all the information was geared towards breast cancer. I also found that there was so many more resources for breast cancer patients, Ovarian cancer needs more!"
"I wish more people were aware that there is more than one type of ovarian cancer. The cancer I had behaved very differently than the cancer postmenopausal women get, and has very different outcomes. And yes, I can still have kids (definitely the most-asked question when I tell someone I had ovarian cancer). I also wish more people were aware of how important it is to advocate for your own health, not just for ovarian cancer or even any cancer, but for life in general."
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