Teal Ribbons

carebear

I was diagnosed in November with High Grade Ovarian Cancer and have had my first chemo  treatment 2 weeks ago and have my next one New Years Eve. I am blessed with a large support system who have expressed a desire to get increased awareness out there about ovarian cancer. Does anyone know where one can order teal ribbons where the funds go to Ovarian Cancer support or research?

Fearless_Moderator

Hi @carebear I'm so sorry to hear of your diagnosis but it's wonderful that you have such great support around you. As a member of OVdialogue you can also count on this community to be at your side throughout your journey.  

I hope your first chemo went well and that the next rounds of treatment are successful and uneventful.  Reach out here if you have questions or concerns any time. And if you haven't already, order the Ovarian Cancer Canada booklet, By Your Side. It's an enormously informative and helpful booklet to help guide your journey from diagnosis through end of primary treatment.  It comes in both hard and soft copy and most of us have both. Here is the link to order it: https://ovariancanada.org/living-with-ovarian-cancer/support-resources

As for awareness paraphernalia, you can google Ovarian Cancer Paraphernalia and find lots of manufacturers and distributors of ribbons and other articles that reflect the colours and symbols of the disease.  And in many cases some more creative members of support groups create articles for their own members. Let us know where you're located or which cancer center is treating you. There may be members here close to you who may know of local providers of awareness materials.  And, around September those who have registered for The Walk Of Hope receive articles provided by Ovarian Cancer Canada.....some of it free, some can be purchased at the Walk sites when the Walk goes to live  in-person status again.  These can be everything from ribbons and pins to baseball caps, toques, mittens etc.  But there is no official single site to order.  That said, I am copying Stephanie Gosselin @StephOCC who oversights OVdialogue for OCC in the event she's aware of something not known to me.  

Best wishes for successful treatment.  I am also high grade serous OVC as are many of my personal friends and members of OVd. It is the most common type and therefor the one for which much research has been devoted the last few years especially.  Many of my fellow sisters went through primary treatment and to this day remain NED (no evidence of disease).  Others, like me, are recurrent but with advances in treatment we are living longer and better lives than ever before.  My own prognosis when diagnosed with Stage 3C in 2017 was about 3 years. But I now five years, with three recurrences under my belt, and still here, still happy and still pretty healthy otherwise.

Do keep us posted on your progress and reach out any time we can be help.  In the meantime wishing you the best for a successful recovery and do continue to encourage your friends and family to spread awareness of our disease. It's through those grass roots efforts that many are saved through early detection.  
  

carebear

@Fearless - Vol Mod 

Thank you so much for your response. I am in Brampton, Ontario. So far I feel I am handling treatment well. I have some mild neuropathy in my fingers but no other persistent side effects. 

The worst thing is the ascites. I had 5 litres of fluid drained a month ago and I swear all of it and more has returned. They are reluctant to do another paracentesis while I am on chemo because of the risk of infection and I can respect that. I just really hope this next round of chemo begins to kick the ascites causing cells ass and I can get some relief. I look 12 months pregnant. We have named the "baby" Chucky and are ready for the evil to be eradicated.

Fearless_Moderator

@carebear
As I understand it, chemo can be a very effective means of reducing and even totally eliminating the fluid.  Two months ago my CT showed ascites (several) in my abdomen for the first time in five years.  At that time I had just started into chemo again for my latest recurrence.  Since I was feeling rather bloated, my oncologist decided to do an ultrasound to see how large the ascites were to determine if it would be appropriate to drain them. By the time that was done I had just finished cycle 2 and lo and behold they couldn't find the ascites on the ultrasound. They had totally disappeared.  So we assume the chemo did the trick before any intervention was necessary.  Hopefully that will be the case with you.  If your oncologist is hesitate to intervene, then try to be patient for a bit and allow the chemo to take effect.  Sometimes responsiveness can be immediate, other times it can take a few sessions to see the effects. 

Oh, and do let the chemo nurses know about the neuropathy in your fingers. They may be able to provide some advice to help prevent it worsening, which is often the case over time.  In fact you might want to go to the SEARCH tab in the upper right of this home page and type in the key word NEUROPATHY for any recommendations you may want to talk to your chemo nurses or oncologist about.  The neuropathy, if you're prone to it, can creep up quickly. I only mention this because five years ago when I was first treated the subject wasn't raised to the extent I needed to be more aware of the possibility. As a result, while it never manifested in my fingers or hands, the neuropathy in my lower legs and feet and quite severe and I waited too long to enable the effects to reverse very much over time. 

Big hugs for now and wishing you a very successful new year as your treatment continues.