Kim Schmidt Photography LLC | Northern Virgina Family Photographer

Anthony, Emery, + I did the 1 mile walk around the OU Health Sciences Center for Outpace Cancer in honor of my mom’s fight with Ovarian Cancer. Emery + I wore our teal in awareness of ovarian cancer. At the bottom of this post is an info-graphic with symptoms (early & advanced). Please make sure that you are listening to your body + that you are talking with your doctors. My mom’s biggest regret is not talking about the specific pain with her OB/GYN. She spent years trying to get answers through her internal medicine doc, but what she complained about weren’t red flags for cancer, unless you know.

*Bloating
*Pelvic or abdominal pain
*Needing to pee more frequently or urgently
*Feeling full quicker or having issues eating

Did you know that there is no screening to detect if someone has ovarian cancer? Every 23 minutes a woman receives the diagnosis of ovarian cancer. That is heartbreaking. Awareness is all I’m asking friends.

We went to Shawnee to be apart of the shaving of my mom’s head, just days before her 64th birthday. It didn’t take long for the chemo to cause her hair to fall out. She is so incredibly brave, allowing her entire family to cut parts of her hair.

On April 24th, my mom received the diagnosis of ovarian cancer by her OB/GYN. The next day the family met up at OU Stevenson Cancer Center to get double confirmation from an oncologist + figure out next steps. I will forever remember my mom’s phone call. I was in the last day of a YMCA training, I walked out to take her call. She was hysterical, as my dad had a trustee event he was attended, so she got the news by herself. It was a major gut punch.

Her oncologist, Dr. Moxley, wanted to get her into surgery that next Tuesday, April 30th, for a complete hysterectomy. After being wheeled back to the OR, the doc came out much sooner than we anticipated to let us know that it’s Stage 3C ovarian cancer, that she wasn’t comfortable removing part of the cancer (because it was everywhere in her abdomen including under her liver). She did place a port in to help administer the chemo.

I plan on attending as many doctor’s appointments + chemo treatments as I am able, to show my mom support. This will give me a peace of mind too, that I won’t miss things that the medical team talk about, especially since I know that my mom is going to have chemo brain + my dad is just as much in the thick of it as she is.