The Purpose of Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month

In 2005, two weeks before learning of a cancer diagnosis for both my mother and wife, I was given a Livestrong yellow wristband by a friend who was offering me his old racing bike as a replacement for an old steel frame Trek I'd been riding for 3 years.

I did not accept his bike because the frame was too small. But I put on the Livestrong wristband that very day and have worn it ever since. Once in a while it slips off in the shower or is pulled off when I'm changing cycling clothes. But other than that, the bracelet has not purposely been removed more than a couple times in more than 5 years. You might say I've been drinking the Livestrong Kool-Aid with this simple little ritual of wearing a yellow rubber wristband like a talisman. But I am far from alone.

Watching the major cycling tours on television, you see riders from other teams sporting yellow wristbands. They have almost become part of the uniform for athletes worldwide. So despite the fact that Lance Armstrong may not be a perfect human being, people respect his efforts to promote cancer awareness even if they have competing interests.

In my humble case the yellow wristband has stayed with me through my efforts to become a better cyclist, but also through career changes and everything else the world has been throwing at us average Joes. I suspect most of us wear our yellow Livestrong bands for reasons we cannot even put our fingers on. They are like good luck charms and a lot less trouble and commitment than a tattoo, for sure.

Which is why the yellow wristband on my left arm has been joined by a teal colored wristband representing ovarian cancer, the disease my wife fights along with thousands of women worldwide diagnosed with gynecological cancers each year. It is estimated 22,000+ women per year are diagnosed with ovarian cancer in America. 80% of them die from the disease, which is hard to detect and not easy to treat. Ovarian cancer can be dramatic at times, producing difficult side effects such as ascites in which a woman's abdomen fills with fluid that must be drained. Or ovarian can advance with barely detectable progress to affect major organs before being treated.

For 5 years I have monitored Google alerts for new treatments on ovarian cancer. Recently there have been clinical results pointing to possible blood or genetic tests to detect the disease. There have also been whispers of possible genetic treatments, but no definitive breakthroughs as yet. So the primary protocols remain surgery and chemotherapy. That means most women with the disease suffer intensive abdominal impacts such as radical hysterectomy and daunting regimens of chemotherapy using drugs like Taxol, Carboplatin, Cisplatin and Gemzar. Each attacks cancer cells in a different way. But these drugs also produce immediate and lasting side effects that include the notorious "chemo brain" causing memory loss and confusion, plus raw physical effects such as neuropathy resulting in numb feet and hands.

The impact of treatment can be so profound that some women begin to question their trouble against the loss in quality of life. The monetary costs of treatment are no joke either. The list price for a single chemotherapy can top $40,000. Usually insurance companies pay less than that through negotiated agreements with medical providers. But the inflated costs of cancer treatment are a daunting reality to anyone who does not have good insurance. One of the goals of health care reform was to bring costs such as these back into line so that health care providers and insurers can know what to expect. But those issues are far from resolved.

As doctors struggle to find ways better ways to detect ovarian cancer, the news seems has gotten weird on the preventative treatment front. Recently the recommendation for any women bearing the ovarian cancer gene has been to cut out the ovaries and remove the breasts. This hardly represents an advance in modern medicine. Barring such measures, women tend to lean on the universally inaccurate number known as CA-125, a blood marker of disturbance in the abdomen. If the numbers go up, there comes a rush to treatment. It's a highly imperfect process. Even doctors seem disgusted with the lack of consistency in this area.

Yet monitoring the disease is obviously important. CT Scans are a valuable tool but some question their long term safety. PET scans which measure hot spots of biotic activity generally cost $5000 or more, a price many insurance companies balk at paying. If we are honest with ourselves, we simply have not made sufficient progress in treatment of ovarian cancer.

That is why Ovarian Cancer Awareness month is so important, like so many other efforts to raise awareness about cancer. We can pin our hopes on the efforts of major personalities such as Lance Armstrong to fight our battles for us in Congress and beyond tin hopes of getting more funding for cancer research. Or we can all write our Congressional representatives and tell our stories so that the fight against cancer does not become depersonalized, the brand name on some political football. Cancer is personal as hell. Wear your wristbands, yes. But write your emails and call your politicians. We all need to raise a voice if we hope to be heard.