HOUSTON — About a year ago, Madelyn Martinez started feeling bloated all the time. So much so, she could no longer sleep on her stomach.
“I would be hungry but I couldn’t eat anything," Martinez said. "I would take one bite of the food and feel like I just finished a buffet."
Martinez said she didn’t give her symptoms much thought.
But several weeks after they first started, the pain became too much to bear.
Her fiancé took her to an emergency room where a doctor shared the grim news.
“He didn’t use the world cancer, he called them masses,” Martinez said.
Dr. Lavanya Palavalli Parsons, a gynecologic oncologist with UT Physicians, diagnosed Martinez with Stage 4 ovarian cancer.
Martinez was 27 years old.
“When you have something like cancer, you think about death," she said. "You think ‘This could be it.’”
Ovarian cancer is the deadliest gynecologic cancer in the United States, mainly because almost 80 percent of women who have it are diagnosed in advanced stages.
The average age of people diagnosed with it is 63.
It’s difficult to detect because symptoms can be attributed to other illnesses: bloating or indigestion, changes in bowel movements, low energy, or changes in menstruation.
"There are risk factors that can increase your risk for ovarian cancer including infertility, endometriosis, and increasing age,” Palavalli Parsons said.
Palavalli Parsons said Martinez had a rare, fast-growing type of cancer.
But after several rounds of chemotherapy and surgery, Martinez was declared cancer-free in March 2019.
"Listen to your body," she said. "I know it’s easier said than done and a lot of times we tend to put things off, but if doesn’t feel right, check it out.”
September is Ovarian Cancer Awareness month.
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