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Today is Teal Ribbon Day in Australia, part of Ovarian Cancer Awareness month.
Ovarian cancer is dubbed the silent killer, its symptoms are nothing out of what a woman would ordinarily experience for a range of other ailments. And often, by the time it is diagnosed it is often too late.
It’s the reason that groups around Australia and the world are trying to raise awareness of this insidious disease.
Here, in Albury-Wodonga, the local awareness group have put up a clothesline of teal knickers for the month of February. The knickers kindly donated by the local Kmart and the clothesline hangs on the main road between the two cities.
It’s a great and fun idea to draw attention to an issue that an insidious side.
A few years back I was reading an old magazine while I ate my lunch and in it was an article about ovarian cancer. Reading the list of symptoms it struck me I had been experiencing many of them in the few weeks before.
I felt like an idiot, a hypochondriac, but I went to my doctor and told him the story. Thankfully, he is a fantastic doctor, checked me over, offered to write referrals for any tests and I got the all clear.
But he did say that it was also better to get it checked, particularly as I had a history of breast cancer in the family.
Each year in Australia around 1400 women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer and more than 1000 will die from the disease.
The four most common symptoms of ovarian cancer include:
- Abdominal or pelvic pain;
- Increased abdominal size or persistent abdominal bloating;
- Needing to urinate often or urgently; and,
- Difficulty eating or feeling full quickly.
The first step to raising awareness is knowing the symptoms.
Find out more at Ovarian Cancer Awareness
