“Just over 6 years ago, I had ovarian cancer. I was 41. I had problems beforehand that were not typical ovarian cancer symptoms, but I knew something was wrong. I had gone to one doctor who ignored me and said nothing was wrong with me. I went to another doctor who said my only problem is that I’m a busy 40 year old mom. But I could feel it in my bones. I just knew something was wrong. I was pushy. It was to the point where I could sleep 22 hours a day and still couldn’t function. It didn’t matter what I did. What I ate, what exercises I was doing, how much rest I had or what vitamins I took. Nothing was getting better. Then I found a doctor at Mayo Clinic Health System who diligently poured through my medical records. She suggested we do an ultrasound. I’m glad I was pushy because they went in and they thought they were just going to have to look at one ovary because they thought there was a fibroid, which there was but it wasn’t a big deal. So they thought everything was ok. I didn’t hear back for 2 weeks. I was hosting a party at my house and had all of my girlfriends there. In the middle of it, I got a phone call from Mayo at 8 pm and thought that’s not good. I didn’t call back until everyone left and when I did she basically said I’m sorry to tell you but you have cancer. It literally brought me to my knees. I didn’t know how severe it was at the time. The first surgery was laparoscopic so that was relatively easy. Then they sent me to a specialist in Rochester and what I had was a borderline serous tumor stage 1C. They said the cancer I had was slow growing so they could go in and remove. So I had a full hysterectomy and they also took out my appendix. They examined my lymph nodes, and fortunately nothing had spread. I was so fortunate I didn’t have to do chemo. The fact that it was found at a 1C when I was pretty much asymptomatic of typical ovarian cancers was amazing. I was blessed to find it so early because it didn’t have time to grow or become entangled in other organs or spread to my lymph nodes. It taught me to be a really strong advocate for myself and for others. It’s so important to not back down and to get that second and third opinion. Going through what I did has brought a lot of perspective and gratitude to my life.”