It seems to be a daily event - finding out that someone you know, or a friend of a friend, has been diagnosed with cancer. Sometimes you have heard of the type, sometimes you haven't, and sometimes the name for it sounds so foreign that you think they must be talking about a city in Russia somewhere. When the news comes up you ask the same questions: how are they handling the news? How are they feeling? What stage? What grade? Is there surgery needed? Radiation? Chemo? What kind of drugs? How many cycles? Do they need help with kids or housework or errands? Rarely however do we ask what their symptoms were. What was it that guided that person to their doctor in the first place? Or was it nothing and caught by chance by a keen eyed doctor?

I bring this up because of an article/story that was posted by Global News here in Calgary. The story talks about why better screening techniques are needed for Ovarian Cancer - currently there isn't a test. Ultrasounds are used to identify cysts on the ovaries that could potentially be cancerous, and there is a blood test that can be done to check for a particular bio marker if cysts are found. There are advancements being made in screening techniques, and as the story points out the treatment techniques have significantly changed in only a few years. While this is great news, it would be great if all cancers could be caught at the very very beginning (or, obviously, not happen at all!). Everyone knows that the earlier you catch any kind of cancer, the better your survival rate is. So I wanted to let everyone know what my symptoms were before I was diagnosed in the hopes that maybe someone can use this information to save themselves from being diagnosed at stage IIIc, when options are limited and treatment is aggressive.

Ovarian cancer is discussed as being the silent killer. It is the ninth most common cancer in women, but fewer than 20% of cases are diagnosed early. The symptoms that are commonly reported are increase in urination frequency, bloating, pelvic/abdominal pain, and difficulty eating. Not really unusual symptoms for a 30 year old woman! I complained multiple times to my doctor about my issues - most specifically about my bloating and cramping, and a few times I mentioned that I would feel hungry but then would barely eat anything and would feel full and bloated. My doctor wasn't concerned, she brushed my pains off as being IBS and told me to watch what I was eating and find my triggers. Nothing seemed to be a big trigger, but I just told myself that I was just going to have to live with it and there was nothing I could do. For almost 4 years I lived with those symptoms, until I went off the birth control pill and the symptoms changed enough that I was a little suspicious. Again, my doctor was tempted to brush off the symptoms as my body getting used to being off the pill, but I pushed for an ultrasound. So began my cancer journey...

Ignorance is not bliss, no matter what the old saying is. Information is power, and as I have said before, YOU are your own best advocate! You know your body, you know when something is off, just because one doctor brushes off your concerns it doesn't mean that your concerns aren't valid. I wish that I had listened to my body, listened to that little voice in my head that just knew that something wasn't right. It's hard to not go through the "what if" scenarios in my head. What if I had caught it a couple years earlier? What if I had been pregnant at a much younger age (they say that being pregnant and breast feeding significantly reduces your chances of developing ovarian cancer). But none of that matters anymore - my new life is my new normal, and I can't go back and change anything. So please learn from my story and LISTEN TO YOUR BODY!

Oh, and if you have some spare quarters laying around and want to help me raise funds to go towards researching screening tests, please support my fundraising efforts for the Ride to Conquer Cancer. I have directed all of my fundraising dollars towards gynecological cancers this year.

http://globalnews.ca/news/1190470/ovarian-cancer-better-screening-techniques-needed-to-improve-survival-odds/