Happy TEAL Tuesday! It’s the first one in October, the month where breast cancer awareness shines brightly to remind us about our breast health. I thought it an appropriate time to shed some light on the kinship between breast and ovarian cancer and the true closeness between pink and teal sisters. I write with the hope that the marketing mavens who dreamt up some of those “Pink-tober” merchandising tie-ins might give our teal sisters the recognition they deserve next September during ovarian cancer awareness month. Although for many of us (like me) awareness is a year-round activity as we are always working hard to save lives regardless of what “color” the month or day might be.
Ovarian cancer has neither a screening test nor a cure, and all women – especially breast cancer survivors — need to know the sad but true facts about the close link between the two cancers. The Angelina Jolie effect has underscored the BRCA gene connection, but it is my job, as an ovarian cancer activist, to tell our “pink” sisters how they might be at a higher risk for ovarian and other cancers such a colorectal, pancreatic and melanoma to name a few.
I know more than just a little about these higher risks since I inherited my mother’s BRCA2 mutations and am a proud ‘previvor’ of ovarian cancer. By having my ovaries removed (called a salpingo-oophorectomy), I reduced my risk for ovarian cancer from 40% to 3% — which is still twice that of the average population. I am also at a much higher risk for breast cancer than the 12% average for most women. Conversely, breast cancer survivors (previvors, too) have a much higher risk for ovarian cancer – many up to a 55% risk. I wonder how many breast cancer survivors know these facts because they certainly aren’t spelled out on the pink ribbons adorning the packages of the food we eat or the detergent we use to wash our clothes.
That being said, we need to applaud the strides made through breast cancer advocacy during the past 25 years and understand that it comes from them having more critical mass, which in turn, generates more money. There are more than 2.8 million women with a history of breast cancer in the United States compared to about 188,000 women who are living with ovarian cancer. We must keep in mind, too, that each year almost twice as many women die from breast cancer as are being diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Nevertheless, breast cancer boasts a 92% survival rate while the survival rate of ovarian cancer is less than 30%. I’ll let you do the math to determine the disparities that exist in the loudness of our voices.
In reality, despite the popular misnomer that ovarian cancer is a silent disease, the only thing(s) silent about it are the voices of women, like my mother and my aunt, who lost their lives to this disease. I sometimes think ovarian cancer awareness is but a drop of teal sand in an ocean of pink. It is my hope that, with a collective roar and increased research funding, we will look back in 25 years and see a tremendous amount of progress on ovarian cancer awareness, detection and treatment. Imagine the day, if you will, when a screening test is a routine part of every woman’s annual gynecologic exam!
We must thank our pink sisters for helping us pave the way. People now talk openly about boobies and tatas. There aren’t any really good nicknames for ovaries, but public discussions about “below the belt cancers” are becoming more frequent. The research funding poured into breast cancer has been a big boost for our disease, too. In fact, the Department of Defense’s ovarian cancer research program was created out of breast cancer initiatives. Ovarian cancer survivors also benefit from some of the treatments that originally were discovered for breast cancer. (Think Avastin.)
So . . . instead of begrudging the out-of-control marketing efforts our pink sisters must endure in October . . . I hope bloggers (like me) will use it as an opportunity to open a dialogue about the link between breast and ovarian cancer and share these important facts with ALL of our sisters: Ovarian cancer does have symptoms. Women without ovaries can still get ovarian cancer. A pap test does not detect ovarian cancer. Breast cancer survivors are at a much higher risk for ovarian cancer.
It has always been my belief that sisters share a lot of things but cancer should not be among them. I urge all women to be vigilant self-advocates for their health every day of every month. We know our bodies better than anyone else and we must be “o”ware of any subtle changes that persist for more than two weeks.
Please THINK PINK and FEEL TEAL this October.
r that has joined our renegade efforts to make EVERY WOMAN aware of the symptoms and risks of this insidious disease.
NormaLeah Ovarian Cancer Initiative 