Hi All, i have been dignosed with stage 4 Ovarian Cancer last year and attended my first Ova Care Patient Day yesterday in Galway, Ireland, hosted by OvaCare. I had signed up for a few before that but was unable to make it and to be honest was a little scared by the notion of being overwhelmed by information.
Well, I should have gone sooner , what a amazing host ( Ovacare) and the women and men in the group well very welcoming, honest, open, informative and above all safe. I really enjoyed and engaged because it was a instant feeling of OvaCares motto ' Together we are stronger '. The speakers varied from the patients stories, two very brave, honest and strong women with very different stories and very different journeys to the doctors in the field of ovarian cancer. The Doctors spoke the language of medicine and spoke with facts, knowledge and above all experience, I was pleasantly noting the audience engaging and lapping up the complex and sometime upsetting information that was presented and dialoguing with the doctors using the medical language and understanding of complexity of ovarian cancer.
Over all I have to say that I am delighted that OvaCare existes for women all over Ireland.
Welcome to the forum Sinead. The patient day sounds wonderful. I'm in England and ovacome organise similar days here (although maybe only once a year) but I've not managed to get to one as they tend to be a long way from where I live. This site provides a huge amount of advice/support though so I'm sure you will get a lot out of it. Oh and by the way you look beautiful without your hair. Love MB X
Sinead, I love your photo! I'm so glad you've found us, and that you managed to attend the Ovacare Day.
There are similar days here in the UK. Ovacome run their Members' Day in London one Saturday in May. Target Ovarian Cancer also run Being Together Days all over the UK, and other events, and a charity called Ovarian Cancer Action offers talks and tours of their research lab in London. I absolutely agree with you that it's stimulating and helpful to attend days where you can meet other women with ovarian cancer, people affected by it, and hear experts in the field explaining about new research and treatments and generally putting out disease into some sort of context.
It's worth doing a scan of the charities websites and joining up to receive regular newsletters and notices of events. The three in the UK are
Target Ovarian Cancer held an 'Ask the Experts' day in Manchester last May. They have put up the slides and webcam of some of the talks which were really very interesting and well delivered.
This site has been singly the most important and essential point of contact for me. Through online friendships, I've learned a lot about the disease, I've made many new face-to-face friendships, and have just found the community to be a great support.
Hi Sinead - sounds worth the visit. Do you live near Galway? My Daughter lives nr Gort. She's studying to be a nursing assistant and has decided to cover Ovarian Cancer as one of her assignments. She would have found the Patient Day interesting I'm sure.
Hi Sinead, I live in Belfast,NI. Do they come up north? As Annie has said, Target Ovarian Cancer go around the country and they came over to Belfast in October last year. They had an Ask the Experts session and it was so informative. It was great to meet other women with the disease and was an inspiration as some had been fighting it for a long time. Glad you enjoyed it and welcome to our club. Ann xo
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Love MB X
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