Ovarian cancer is diagnosed in 54 U.S. patients each day, according to the Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance. To help future physicians and other medical professionals recognize the disease’s warning signs, which are often misdiagnosed as common and less dangerous conditions, St. Louis Ovarian Cancer Awareness collaborates with area medical schools in a program called Survivors Teaching Students.
On St. Louis on the Air, Drs. Andrea and Ian Hagemann — two frequent collaborators with St. Louis Ovarian Cancer Awareness — shared the importance of listening to and learning from ovarian cancer survivors. The doctors said first-person accounts have furthered advancements in research and treatment. Survivor experiences also help medical providers understand what it means to treat not only ovarian cancer but also the patient with the disease.
Ovarian cancer survivor Joan Grummels shares her story by way of the Survivors Teaching Students program. She said she wants the classes she visits to know “there’s more to living than just not dying.”
“Living with metastatic cancer is really an exercise in controlling terror. Somehow not letting it dominate your life. But ultimately, I had to ask myself, if this somehow shortens my life, is that OK?” Grummels said. “I wanted to share that with the class, because they're treating a condition, but they're dealing with the whole person.”
Catherine Mikolay also volunteers with St. Louis Ovarian Cancer Awareness by describing her personal experience of living with ovarian cancer. Her story highlights the way this condition can afflict those who regularly exercise and have healthy eating habits. Before Mikolay’s diagnosis, she was training for the Chicago Marathon.
“Whenever you train, there's lots of running. I used to tell myself after a run, ‘You're bulletproof and invincible.’ It was very empowering. … It was shortly thereafter, in 2018, [that] I was diagnosed,” she said.
Dr. Ian Hagemann, a professor of pathology and immunology at the Washington University School of Medicine, said that awareness is what will get medicine closer to finding a cure and saving lives.
“The goal is to help our graduates at the medical school, no matter what specialty they choose, to remember to work [up] patients for ovarian cancer and other gynecologic malignancies so they can be diagnosed more quickly and have access to more effective treatment,” he said.
For more on the early warning signs of ovarian cancer, and advancements made through research and increasing physician and patient awareness of the disease with Drs. Andrea and Ian Hagemann, listen to St. Louis on the Air on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, or click the play button below.
“St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Miya Norfleet, Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski, Elaine Cha and Alex Heuer. Jada Jones is our production assistant. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr.
