Daughter on crusade to spare others same grief

She is urging women not to ignore symptoms during Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month in February.
Tragically, Mary said family and medical staff all dismissed her 80-year-old mother’s symptoms as ‘just part of getting old’ until it was too late – she died on Christmas Day a week after diagnosis.
“I don’t want women to suffer like my mum suffered; at the end, it had gone to her brain and all through her body,” she said.
“She shouldn’t have had to go through that.
“I am fighting to make people aware. Ovarian cancer is called a silent killer for a good reason.”
Mary said women who had stomach pain, constipation, heartburn, bloating, backache or needed to urinate often or felt full after eating only a small amount, should make an appointment with their GP and insist on booking in for an ultrasound.
“It’s such an awful cancer. It’s for my mum that I have to do this, to talk about ovarian cancer and to educate everyone. I am urging women who have any of the symptoms, to get it checked now or it could be too late.”
One woman dies every eight hours from ovarian cancer in Australia and over 50 per cent of the community incorrectly believe a pap smear diagnoses it.
The average age of diagnosis is 64 but you can get it at any age.
Details: Ovarian Cancer Australia Helpline on 1300 660 334. Donations: ovariancancer.net.au.