Written by: Traci
Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month is deeply personal for me.
I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2018, but at the time, cancer was the last thing on my mind. It was early January, and I was completely focused on training for the Boston Marathon.
I didn’t quite know what to make of the changes I was noticing. I was in incredible shape and assumed the weight loss and low energy I was experiencing were just the result of marathon training.
Three hours after my ultrasound, I got a call from my doctor’s office telling me I had a ten-centimetre cyst. My immediate concern was whether I could still fly to Phoenix the next day to run the Arizona Rock ’n’ Roll Half Marathon, but looking back, I wonder how much the cyst was quietly affecting me. Was impacting my hunger and my body in ways I didn’t recognize at the time?
I ended up running my half marathon (and surprisingly fast for what was meant to be a training run), but soon everything moved even faster. Over a few weeks, I had a CT scan, an OB appointment, and a gynecologic oncology consult.
I was told there was a fifty-fifty chance that I had cancer.
I never really let myself believe that I had ovarian cancer. I felt mostly fine. I was still training, just a bit bloated, but I think I was trying to protect myself from jumping to conclusions. Then my pain quickly got worse.
A week later, they removed a cyst that had quickly grown to sixteen centimetres, along with everything else in my abdomen – both of my ovaries, both fallopian tubes, uterus, cervix, appendix and part of my colon.
At my follow-up appointment, I learned that I was one of the rare lucky cases: I had endometrioid adenocarcinoma, a slow-growing cancer caught at stage one. No chemotherapy. No radiation. I found out I had cancer and was cancer-free almost at the same time.
For a long time afterward, I struggled to call myself a cancer survivor because I didn’t feel like I had fought cancer in the traditional sense.
It was there, and then it was gone. Reconciling that reality while still acknowledging the seriousness of what had happened took longer than my physical recovery.
But over time, I’ve come to understand that my experience gives me a responsibility to advocate for early detection.
One of the biggest reasons my cancer was caught early is because my doctor refused to dismiss symptoms that are often brushed off as normal for women of a certain age. That’s exactly the problem with ovarian cancer: the symptoms are often subtle and easy to normalize. But this just one reason the 5-year survival rate for ovarian cancer is still far too low – most people are diagnosed at stage three or four.
My message to anyone noticing small but persistent changes is simple:
Pay attention and advocate for yourself.
If something feels different or ongoing, get it checked. And if you feel dismissed, insist on being heard.
If something feels different or ongoing, get it checked. And if you feel dismissed, insist on being heard. Early detection can change everything. Catching my cancer early meant surgery was enough, but not everyone gets that same chance. For the many women diagnosed at later stages, access to innovative treatments is critical to improving their outcomes.
That is why Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month means so much to me. This is not simply a month for sharing information. It’s a time to turn awareness into action and deliver the change needed to transform lives.
Traci and her husband, Mark
Since 2020, my husband, Mark, and I have raised more than $150,000 for Ovarian Cancer Canada.
I know how fortunate I was to have my cancer caught early. I know how fortunate I was to have a doctor who listened, surgery that could remove my cancer, and the opportunity to move forward without chemotherapy or radiation.
As a community, we can help improve ovarian cancer survival rates by investing in awareness, research and advocacy.
I was lucky enough to hear, “We caught it just in time.” More people deserve to hear those words.