Women's Health and Ovarian Cancer
Okay first I should say that I have first hand experience because my mother died of ovarian cancer in 2003. I am still really shocked at the swiftness of the illness. From diagnosis to death my mum only had 10 months. It is still very hard to think about it sometimes, but I need to get this off my chest because it is an important issue for all women.
How many of you have heard of ovarian cancer? How many of you know how it is diagnosed? How many of you think that it can be diagnosed with a smear test? I was completely ignorant about this illness when it was discovered, there is a real lack of public awareness, yet this is one of the most deadly of all cancers! Perhaps you think I'm being a scaremonger because my mum died. I hope I am, I hope I make at least one person sit up and think! My god, this is a cancer that CANNOT be diagnosed through the use of a smear test. Even though it is connected to all of those “woman's bits” it does not show up with a smear test.
In the early stages there are hardly any symptoms and those that there might be are usually put down to other things. No-one expects the Spanish Inquisition and no-one sure as hell expects to get ovarian cancer. It creeps up on you and by the time it is diagnosed you are at stage 3 or 4, which means, basically, that you CANNOT be cured. Very few women who get this illness survive because so few get diagnosed early.
I CANNOT believe that in this day an age that no-one has stopped to think about additional, high profile, well publicised research into this illness. I know that research is continuing, but surely, one of the points should be that women are alerted to the dangers and that ways of checking women for this illness through, perhaps a blood test, as a standard procedure at the same time as they have their smear tests and mammograms. Cervical cancer can be cured before it is actually even cancer. Abnormalities in cells are detected and treatment is given to the woman that means that she never actually develops the cancer. Brilliant! But early detection is needed for other cancers too!
I am not decrying or belittling the research that is done by all the dedicated scientists out there, they are already doing so much good. But surely funds are desperately needed for research into the early detection of extremely deadly cancers as ovarian cancer. Its a scary thought that by the time a woman has realised that something is wrong, she's already dying!
My mother only realised that something was wrong when she was having problems breathing. She would get out of breath very easily and she realised that there was a problem. It was discovered that she had fluid on the lungs. This is a very serious symptom of any illness and cannot lead to any good news. So when I did research about fluid on the lung on the Internet, I realised that the prognosis was not good. However, I had no idea that it was due to ovarian cancer. My mum died a very painful death and I feel that everything should be done to alert women.
How many of you have heard of ovarian cancer? How many of you know how it is diagnosed? How many of you think that it can be diagnosed with a smear test? I was completely ignorant about this illness when it was discovered, there is a real lack of public awareness, yet this is one of the most deadly of all cancers! Perhaps you think I'm being a scaremonger because my mum died. I hope I am, I hope I make at least one person sit up and think! My god, this is a cancer that CANNOT be diagnosed through the use of a smear test. Even though it is connected to all of those “woman's bits” it does not show up with a smear test.
In the early stages there are hardly any symptoms and those that there might be are usually put down to other things. No-one expects the Spanish Inquisition and no-one sure as hell expects to get ovarian cancer. It creeps up on you and by the time it is diagnosed you are at stage 3 or 4, which means, basically, that you CANNOT be cured. Very few women who get this illness survive because so few get diagnosed early.
I CANNOT believe that in this day an age that no-one has stopped to think about additional, high profile, well publicised research into this illness. I know that research is continuing, but surely, one of the points should be that women are alerted to the dangers and that ways of checking women for this illness through, perhaps a blood test, as a standard procedure at the same time as they have their smear tests and mammograms. Cervical cancer can be cured before it is actually even cancer. Abnormalities in cells are detected and treatment is given to the woman that means that she never actually develops the cancer. Brilliant! But early detection is needed for other cancers too!
I am not decrying or belittling the research that is done by all the dedicated scientists out there, they are already doing so much good. But surely funds are desperately needed for research into the early detection of extremely deadly cancers as ovarian cancer. Its a scary thought that by the time a woman has realised that something is wrong, she's already dying!
My mother only realised that something was wrong when she was having problems breathing. She would get out of breath very easily and she realised that there was a problem. It was discovered that she had fluid on the lungs. This is a very serious symptom of any illness and cannot lead to any good news. So when I did research about fluid on the lung on the Internet, I realised that the prognosis was not good. However, I had no idea that it was due to ovarian cancer. My mum died a very painful death and I feel that everything should be done to alert women.
posted by Minxy Luna @ 9:34 a.m.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home