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Seven Rounds with the “Silent Killer”: My Mother’s Journey with Ovarian Cancer

By Suzannah Hoover

WASHINGTON – The needs of others always outweighed my mother’s own. Growing up the second of four children, my mother always took on the roll of caretaker and peacemaker to her siblings.  She carried this into her professional life by becoming a nurse.

After marrying my father, she gave up this career to care for my siblings and I, putting every ounce of herself into raising us.  Later, she began working in the construction company she and my father owned in order to support him.

Following a violent spring storm in Indiana, my mother trudged up the hill with a load of logs from the trees that had fallen. As she neared the top she was not only fighting against the weight of the load, but something inside her was fighting her as well. She described it as having a mass inside of her that wasn’t moving with the rest of her body.

“She said she felt pregnant again” my father, Jeff Hoover, 57, said.

It is estimated that 1 in 71 women will develop ovarian cancer in their lifetime, according to the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance. It is often called the “Silent Killer” because there are no concrete external symptoms that are associated with it; most of the indicators manifest as symptoms of less serious illnesses. These indicators are whispers of this disease and are often the only hope of discovering it in the early stages. In June 2011, my mother, Lois Hoover, 58, became a part of that statistic.

The mass, coupled with post-menopausal spotting and cramping, urged my mother to the doctor in the summer of 2011. After initial tests my mom returned home without a diagnosis, but increased pain promptly sent her back to the doctor.  “I wasn’t willing to wait,” my mother said. “I felt like something was more severe than I thought.”

Testing revealed a mass in her abdomen and a complete hysterectomy was scheduled for a week later.

Unlike cervical or breast cancer, there are no screening tools for ovarian cancer, only symptoms. “The four most common [symptoms] are, bloating, pelvic or abdominal pain or discomfort, frequency or urgency of urination and feeling full quickly after you eat,” said Diane O’Connor, 67, an ovarian cancer survivor and President of the Board of Directors for the Ovarian Cancer Alliance of Oregon and Southwest Washington.

However, there are three tools typically used for diagnosis. They are a CA-125 blood test, a trans-vaginal ultrasound, and surgery. O’Connor said “In order to really diagnose [ovarian cancer], in most cases, you have to have the surgery; it’s a big deal surgery.”

Following the surgery, my mother was informed that she had ovarian cancer; stage 2, serous carcinoma. “Waking up from surgery was scary. I didn’t know what they had found, I didn’t know if it would have metastasized and I would have a colostomy bag,” my mother said.

My mother felt like she had failed her family. “My mother died from cancer, three of my grandparents died from cancer, I haven’t seen anything good to come from this diagnosis. I didn’t want my family to go through this again.”

At least 75 percent of women diagnosed with this cancer are in stage 3 or 4, which are the advanced stages of cancer.  My mother, because she listened to her body, was not in that percent. Her cancer was discovered in an early stage. “It used to be called the Silent Killer. It’s not silent. At least 90 percent of women have symptoms, it’s just that the symptoms are more gastrointestinal and urinary than they are gynecologic and so they are often misdiagnosed. It’s not like you wake up one morning and you are bleeding” O’Connor said.

Two weeks into healing from the hysterectomy, my mother began chemotherapy. She endured seven rounds, lasting four to five hours each.  “It’s not fun,” Lois said. “I’ve dealt with a lot of nausea. [However] I feel lucky because when I go to treatment, I see some people and I know they are only buying time.”

My family, like many affected by ovarian cancer knew little about this disease before it was among us. “I was aware of people who had breast cancer and colon cancer,” my father said. “In finding out about ovarian cancer, there was a large educational curve to get ourselves up to speed with current treatments, what does the diagnosis mean, what does the stage mean.”

Education efforts to break the silence of ovarian cancer are increasing in prevalence throughout the country.  “One of the signature programs of the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance is “Survivors Teaching Students” where survivors are trained to speak to third year medical students so that [they] have it on their radar screens,” said O’Connor.

Additionally, the DC Cancer Consortium has an ovarian cancer pamphlet campaign.  They seek to educate women in locations other than medical facilities in order to reach a larger audience.  “We want to touch folks, find out how to reach them [and] who they are trusting messages from,” said YaVonne Vaughan, Executive Director of the DC Cancer Consortium.

During treatment there was a network of support systems, typically however, once chemotherapy is finished the transition can be difficult as that support wanes. “After treatment the support system falls off, then what?” Vaughan said. The DC Cancer Consortium is also looking into the idea of a survivor support group.

“I am glad to be done.  It feels a little scary to think I don’t have anything coming to help me fight if there is anything inside me yet,” my mother said.  “I mean did [chemotherapy] do its job?”

While my mother is finished with her chemotherapy treatments, the emotional and medical ramifications will continue for years.  She will require routine testing including blood tests and scans for the next five years. “There is life after cancer, at the same time, the awareness of cancer in your life will be with us for the rest of our lives” my father said.

As helping others has always been in her nature, my mother wants to use her experience to spread the word about ovarian cancer.  “I have talked with a number of women including my daughters, my sisters, friends and I will continue.”  At the same time, she hopes to move past this experience in the future: “I am not just someone with cancer, I am also a wife, a mother, a job holder, a friend and I don’t want the cancer to define me.”