UMSN Class Hears Cancer Survivors’ Emotional Stories

“Ovarian cancer is not the silent killer. It speaks. We just have to listen,” students are told.

“It’s really important for us as survivors to share our stories with future health care professionals,” says Michelle Shepherd, a nine-year cancer survivor and facilitator for the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance program, Survivors Teaching Students: Saving Women's Lives.® “Ovarian cancer is the deadliest of all the gynecological cancers. It doesn’t have a specific screening test, and it’s most frequently in an advanced stage by the time it’s diagnosed. That’s why we want to raise awareness with future nurses."

Speaking at UMSN had special meaning for alumna Pam Dahlmann. “I was born here when this building was still being used as St. Joseph’s Hospital and there are a lot of memories here,” Dahlmann says. The speakers share their stories on a regular basis with different audiences, but Dahlmann says being in the building brought back a rush of emotions as she told the students about losing her grandmother, and more recently her mother who was also a UMSN alumna, to ovarian cancer.

“Almost nothing has changed as far as diagnosis, treatment, and survival rate in the decades between the deaths of my mother and grandmother,” says Dahlmann. In 2011, Dahlmann and her mother co-founded the Michigan Ovarian Cancer Alliance (MIOAC) which provides community outreach, education, advocacy, resources, and support throughout Michigan.

“We want to encourage you as future nurses to pay attention to the signs and keep ovarian cancer in the back of your mind,” Beth Johnson told the audience. Johnson says she credits her survival to vigilance about her health after surviving breast cancer. She and her health care providers had monitored a small cyst on her ovary for five years until it suddenly became solid and enlarged. “Because we caught it so early, it was stage one and I had a successful surgery,” says Johnson. “My kind of story is a rarity. That’s why we’re fighting for an early detection method.”

Unfortunately, Janet Schuler’s story is far more common. “I wasn’t diagnosed until 8 months after I started having symptoms,” she tells the class. “Then, I had complications from my surgery and had to delay chemotherapy. I celebrated my one-year anniversary of chemo completion with a 5k race, but in January, I had a reoccurrence and I’m currently going through treatment. Seventy-five percent of patients with a late stage diagnosis will have a reoccurrence.”

Many symptoms of ovarian cancer are commonly also found in other health issues, which is part of the difficulty in getting a proper diagnosis. However, the women encouraged the students to be aware of the four main symptoms:

• Bloating
• Pelvic/abdominal pain
• Difficulty eating/feeling full quickly
• Urinary frequency/urgency

A woman who experiences any of these symptoms more than 12 times in one month should see a health care provider.

"This is such a wonderful experience for the students,” says UMSN Clinical Assistant Professor Cindy Fenske, DNP, RN, CNE, who invited to the survivors to speak to the class. “They learn information about cancer from their textbooks, but having this opportunity to humanize this disease, can really affect how the students see and think about their patients.”