Gynecologic Cancer: What Every Woman Should Know
Drescher Advocates for Better Healthcare
Updated on: June 19, 2003
The best teachers are people with personal experience behind their lessons. That’s why we asked actress and gynecologic cancer survivor Fran Drescher, a recipient of the Gynecologic Cancer Foundation’s Public Service Award, to share her thoughts.
In her commentary below, Drescher reflects the frustration and grief she experienced in dealing with her cancer but also her fierce determination to use what she learned to make a difference for other women.
Fran Drescher
Remember the old days, when you would go to your physician — probably a doctor you’ve been seeing for years — run down a list of symptoms, and let the doctor take over from there?
Well, those days are over.
Nowadays, it’s relatively easy to enter a doctor’s office armed with information and questions. You owe it to yourself to become more proactive and self-empowered about your healthcare. Consider the following.
A doctor tells his patient, "I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is you have 48 hours to live." The patient asks, "If that’s the good news, then what’s the bad news?" The doctor responds, "I was supposed to tell you yesterday."
That joke says it all. Too many women are finding out too late in the game that they have cancer.
That’s what happened to me. I walked around for two years with progressively worsening symptoms and saw eight different doctors before someone finally performed the simple test that correctly diagnosed me with uterine cancer. Until that day, I was being treated with hormone replacement therapy for a perimenopausal condition I didn’t have.
The delay in diagnosis had consequences. My cancer had progressed to the point that I needed a hysterectomy and lymph node biopsies. Although I consider myself fortunate to be alive, a hysterectomy is a bitter pill to swallow, particularly for a woman who has never had children, like myself.
Although unique in its details, my story of delayed diagnosis is unfortunate but not uncommon. Statistics indicate that an estimated 70% of women diagnosed with ovarian cancer will be diagnosed in the later stages of the disease. With uterine cancer, the annual death toll has been rising and researchers don’t know why. What’s more, the profile for women diagnosed with uterine cancer has been changing.
In the past, women with uterine cancer were usually post-menopausal and obese. Now, younger, thinner women like myself are also being diagnosed with this cancer. Again, no one knows why.
Once I got past the shock and fear of being diagnosed with cancer, I realized I had to sound the alarm! It’s high time we all take greater responsibility for our health and learn the symptoms, risk factors, and diagnostic tests available to detect gynecologic cancers.
Beyond that, we must urge our legislators to fund research that will help physicians understand the rising death toll from uterine cancer and the reason more young women are being diagnosed with this disease.
We must persuade our elected officials to increase funding for research aimed at identifying a reliable method of early detection for ovarian cancer. We also need to enlist our legislators in the fight to have more diagnostic tests that can detect gynecologic cancers included in our basic health coverage.
The time to take action on these critical issues is now. With more than 80,000 women a year being diagnosed with gynecologic cancer, there is no time to lose!
This article by the Gynecologic Cancer Foundation originally appeared in an advertising supplement to the New York Times on Sunday, June 22, 2003.
GCF gratefully acknowledges Aventis Oncology for its generous support of this educational supplement. The content of this supplement is the work of many individuals and does not reflect commercial interests.
Aventis Pharmaceuticals
www.AventisOncology.com