tantan

As Karen Newstead, Boots from Ingham, north Norfolk, stood in the Houses of Parliament listening to the survival rate statistics her heart wrenched. She would be lucky to be alive in five years time and all the pain, trauma and effort she had experienced would be in vain. Karen was attending a parliamentary reception at which ovarian cancer charity Target Ovarian was lobbying MPs to help women with ovarian cancer live a longer and better life. It was here, on a sunny day in June this year, surrounded by other women with ovarian cancer, MPs, members of Target Ovarian and other health care professionals that Karen had an epiphany. “I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in January 2009 and then told that I had secondary cancer on my bowel in October last year, and here I stood deeply shocked at what I was hearing at the parliamentary reception. It suddenly dawned on me that I was one of the women Target Ovarian is aiming to help. My life will probably be cut short and I do not want that to be the case for other women. If I had recognised my symptoms earlier my chances of survival would be much greater than they are today.” Karen’s story of cancer is a short but sad one. Looking back she says that she had days when she felt extra tired, her bowel habits became irregular and her appetite waned but all symptoms were minor and came at a particularly stressful time in her life. Says Karen: “I had a stressful job, my marriage had broken down and I was coming up to 50; I thought that it was a mix of stress and the first signs of the menopause. I had gone to the doctor’s and they put it down to Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). I had always had problems with my bowel so to me this diagnosis made sense. “Then I found Discount Ugg Boots a lump just in front of my hip bone. Again I thought that this was minor and perhaps a fibroid. When I was told that I had ovarian cancer it changed my life.” The symptoms Karen had experienced months before were the first signs of ovarian cancer. It is common that these are overlooked or deemed to be signs of IBS. For Karen and many others ovarian cancer is diagnosed too late. Karen underwent an extensive operation to remove her reproductive organs, she had aggressive chemotherapy treatment and lost all her hair. Then in September 2009 she was given the all-clear.