The story of Eva-Maria
I was a half marathon runner, in good shape. I hade no signs that something could be wrong in my body. It was a regular checkup and the doctor was telling me I hade a benign tumour on my ovarii and I had to go to surgery. Surgery went well and I waited for the pathologyresults. The results came and unfortunately I had a rare form of ovarian cancer called Dysgerminoma, at the age of 27.
I had to go to another even bigger surgery. After half a year my cancer came back, now in my kidney. The third surgery was hard and after that I had to get chemotherapy. I was a very ill for half a year and had to get help from my parents all the time.
Now, I am 40 years old and go to regular checkups and everything seems to be okay with my ovarian cancer. Unfortunately, half a year ago, I got another cancerform. Not rare but still, a new cancer to deal with.
I try to stay positive all the time and I have been a patient advocate in many organisations and associations for many years. I am working as a nurse and a cancernurse. I have co-founded and are vicechair in Gynecological Cancerpatients in Finland (Suomen Gynekologiset Syöpäpotilaat ry). I also lecture a lot about my rare cancer and how nurses and doctors can support the patient mentaly during her/his cancerjurney.