I had never been in the habit of noting when things were different with my body before my diagnosis. I never tracked my period or when I was ovulating. I never weighed myself and because I had never been sick before, I suppose I took it for granted that my body just worked and I got on with it. It would have been super useful not only for my doctors but for me to have known when things were abnormal for me. I would have had more evidence to back up the not-so-obvious symptoms of the cancer. And more importantly, early detection is crucial to dealing with cancer and saving lives.

Since being diagnosed with a rare form of ovarian cancer, myself and my team have been working together to learn more about it and at first, it was pretty scary. If I was going to have cancer, could I not have had a type that medical professionals knew more about? I began educating myself on how my body should be functioning, which added an extra level of anxiety because I was shocked at how much I didn’t know about what I should and shouldn’t be experiencing as a twenty-something-year-old woman. That discovery made me sad because for someone who lived a healthy and active life to be diagnosed with cancer was shocking, confusing and I was looking for a reason or something to blame. I didn’t beat myself up for not ‘catching’ my symptoms earlier but I did begin to make a conscious effort to know my normal because the truth is, my life depends on it.

Cancer can’t rule my life and it shouldn’t. Cancer can make you feel like you have no control. But those of us who are surviving cancer will tell you that you do have control over your body and part of taking care of your body is knowing when things are not doing their usual thing! It’s a skill to find the balance of obsessing over every tiny change each month and living freely with the confidence that when you do check in with yourself you can note when something doesn’t feel right and do something about it.

Advocacy is so important in the world of cancer and the least we can do when we go to our GPs is hit them with the facts of our bodies and allow them to help us from there. That’s why knowing what our normal is is so important.

I always say, if it don’t feel right, get it checked out.