WOMEN SHINE IN STRUGGLE TO HALT KILLER
THE Queensland Country Bank Stadium and Townsville sign will be lit in teal tonight to mark World Ovarian Cancer Day.
Dr Alisha Thomson, 31, has been through chemotherapy for the third time in the last three-and-a-half years to fight her stage four cancer.
“We want to get that message out there for people to drive and have a look, but also when they go, to look up some facts about ovarian cancer to be better informed,” she said.
“It’s one of those cancers that people don’t know a lot about, it does affect many women around Australia.
“Unfortunately the symptoms that often lead to diagnosis are very vague, bloating, abdominal pain, feeling full early … it delays them possibly going to the GP, what it means is our survival rates are still quite low because we’re diagnosing ovarian cancer quite late.”
Dr Thomson said only 46 per cent of patients would still be alive five years after being diagnosed.
Breast cancer has a five-year survival rate of above 90 per cent.
“That’s only happened in the past few years because of their amazing advocacy of the breast cancer groups, also the fact that they’ve put so much money from fundraising and the government grants into research,” Dr Thomson said.
“That’s why they’ve seen improvements and that’s what women with ovarian cancer want.”
Ovarian cancer survivor Leeann Webster, 53, was diagnosed in November 2012, at the age of 45 and was initially misdiagnosed when she went to the hospital for “excruciating pain”.
She decided to get a second opinion from her GP and it was during an operation for a hysterectomy that the cancer was discovered.
“Always trust your body, your inner feelings if you think it’s something out of normal, have it checked,” she said.
“If I had of listened to my first diagnosis I wouldn’t be here.”
The Janice Mayes Ovarian Cancer Research Grant aims to raise $50,000 for research, and was established in memory of the prominent Townsville family law barrister who died aged 55 in August last year.
>>Donate at: www.womencan.org.au/fundraisers/townsville-s-ovarian-cancer-team