2023-09-10 01:52:58
Christine Lasalle does not hesitate to describe ovarian cancer as “neglected” or “silent”. There is no real reliable screening test to prevent this disease, she laments. “This means that it is often detected at an advanced stage,” says the 56-year-old from Gatineau. Walk for Hope, a nationwide fundraising campaign, is hosting an event this Sunday, September 10, at Andrew Hayden Park in Ottawa to walk and raise money to support research.
The Canadian Cancer Society estimated in 2022 that 3,000 Canadian women would be diagnosed with ovarian cancer and that 1,950 women in the country would die from the disease. According to the Canada Research Chair in Personalized Treatments for Ovarian Cancer, this type of cancer is the fifth most common cancer among Canadian women and it is the deadliest gynecological cancer.
When Ms. Lasalle went to her doctor in July 2019 with certain symptoms, the general practitioner saw nothing, she notes. The paralegal at Health Canada’s legal services had been running to the bathroom for a year with frequent urges to urinate. She had abnormal vaginal discharge. She had somewhat lost her appetite for some time. The doctor first thought it was a urinary infection. Between July 2019 and December 2020, Ms. Lasalle went back and forth to the medical office several times. We mightn’t identify his health problem.
“I don’t blame my doctor. I trusted him. At the same time, looking back, I tell myself that certain things should have raised red flags for me, but I told myself that I was getting older, I was drinking a lot of water. I also took medication that suppressed hunger,” she says.
It was during a holiday shopping trip with her daughter, Gabrielle, that everything finally came to light. “I noticed that my stomach had grown. I pretty much owe my life to my daughter. While going shopping during the holidays, in the fitting room, she said to me “your stomach is funny, mom, it’s weird”. I said ”that’s not okay anymore”. I called my family doctor urgently. When he felt my stomach, he didn’t like it. I passed all the tests within a few weeks. Within a month, I had the complete hysterectomy. When I woke up, the doctor told me I had stage 3B ovarian cancer,” summarizes the main person concerned.
The recidivist
Six chemotherapy sessions later, Ms. Lasalle believed she was cured. “I had the right to 18 months of rest,” she explains.
And bang, the ton of bricks in the face arrives once more in February 2022. The cancer has returned. We start chemotherapy once more.
However, cancer becomes refractory to platinum salts. The prognosis takes a darker turn. The patient will need to receive continuous chemotherapy treatment. “When we receive this, we don’t see it coming. It takes a while to swallow it. We say to ourselves, if someone with diabetes takes insulin, I take chemo. Of course, insulin gives you more of a boost, but it helps you swallow the pill. At the moment, I take it once every four weeks. I have two weeks to recover from this. On my good days, I pack it with activities.”
She endures physical and mental fatigue and hand-foot syndrome. It is especially the headaches that are difficult to manage. The mother insists that she is not to be pitied. She is not the exception. “There are plenty of people like me,” she says.
A message to send to women
Ovarian Cancer Canada organizes Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month every September, The Walk for Hope, a nationwide fundraising campaign. People can participate in the activity in person or virtually. The event takes place this Sunday, September 10. In the region, people are invited to come to Andrew Hayden Park in Ottawa to walk and raise money to support research.
The Gatinoise, who doesn’t really like large gatherings, will go with a few friends and members of her family to the Asticou center on Sunday morning to put their shoulder to the wheel and walk 5 km. She has already raised a little over $3,000 for the cause, thanks to her work colleagues and her family.
What she especially wants is to raise awareness among women regarding this cancer which, in her opinion, is too often in the spotlight. Breast cancer is widely publicized, as is prostate cancer, which is excellent in itself, in terms of prevention, but ovarian cancer must also become better known to the population, believes Ms. Lasalle. The mother wants to prevent other women from suffering the same fate as her.
“If I have a message to convey, it’s that you have to know your body and its symptoms and that you have to be the first to plead your case with the family doctor or clinical nurse. In the emergency room, do the same thing. If there is one who doesn’t believe you, go see another. If I had a magic wand to return to the past, I would perhaps have pleaded my case more,” she underlines in broad strokes.
Hope
In August 2022, doctors gave Christine Lasalle two years to live. She promised her oncologist and other specialists that she would make them lie. The fifty-year-old does not want to know the expected time of the end of her story. If she might get her hands on a crystal ball, she would refuse the offer. She prefers to live one day at a time, one ordeal at a time, one beautiful moment at a time. She intends to hold on to life with all her strength to be there for a long time to come for her daughter Gabrielle and her son Jacob.
“You need hope because you don’t live. You need hope because otherwise your head is in your pillow and you’re screaming all the time. You need hope because your children need you. You need hope because your friends love you around you. We need hope because Ovarian Cancer Canada is here to do research for us. I am very religious and I tell myself that perhaps there is a miracle for me.
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