November 3rd, 2014: My dad turned 88 and I woke up in the hospital after major abdominal surgery to learn that I had ovarian cancer.  I was devastated.

 

Ten days later, I learned that I was one of the lucky ones: my ovarian cancer was Stage 2 –  I  embarked on six rounds of chemo therapy, and now five years later, my prognosis is excellent.

 

Most cases of ovarian cancer are not discovered at Stage 1 or 2, when the survival rate is high; most cases are discovered at Stage 3 or 4, when the prognosis is not good.  Ovarian cancer has a suite of vague symptoms which means early signs often go undiagnosed.

 

My symptoms began in the spring of 2014; I did go to my primary care physician; nothing was identified.  It never occurred to me to make an appointment with my GYN; I did consider going to a GI doctor at one point.  The “complex cyst” was found at my annual GYN exam in late September.

 

On this web site you will see the projects that I have undertaken in an effort to keep the promise I made to myself to use my experience and the fact that I survived, to make a difference for this deadly cancer.

 

To contribute to Project #3: The Workshop: Together We can Learn About Living Without An Omentum:

LINK to Go-Fund-Me Page

 

Yours in health,

 

Meg Wilkinson