Events

Ovacome Day 8th April

As many of you will be aware, we commemorate Sarah Dickinson, our founder with an annual awareness and fund-raising day, called Ovacome Day. Each year, on the anniversary of her birthday, 8th April, Ovacome members across the country have the opportunity to support others, and the charity with activities in their local communities.

This year we are suggesting several events. The first is organising a display in your local shopping centre or mall. We are fortunate to have the support of all our colleagues in the pharmaceutical industry with offers of stands, and practical help on the day. It is really quite simple to organise, and a really positive way of supporting the charity. You can also turn it into a fund-raising event by having a collection. We have some guidance notes which will help you with the day, as well as literature and ribbons for you to distribute. If you would be interested in organising a stand, or would like to find out if other Ovacome members in your area are doing so, and would like to volunteer some time, please do call the office.

Another event which you may wish to consider is an Easter egg hunt. Last year it was suggested we use an eggs theme, as they have an obvious link with ovaries. We have considered several ways of doing this, and the Easter egg hunt seemed a fun and relatively easy way of developing the theme. It is principally a fund-raising exercise, but we hope to get some celebrities involved, and are working on using the event to achieve some good press coverage. We will be running what we hope will be the first of many on Sunday 13th April in central London. We plan to have a fun-filled day for all the family. If you would like to join us please phone the office for details, or if you would like help in organising your own Easter egg hunt, we will happily do what we can.

We do appreciate that for many of our members organising such activities is too much, and we hear many happy tales of coffee mornings and gatherings with friends. It all adds up to the same thing:
Together we can make a difference!

All about Fundraising

Flora Light Challenge for Women

I enclose a cheque for £300 collected from sponsorship donations for the Flora Light Challenge at Hyde Park. It was another great day, I've now competed in the last three years, but this was the most difficult as before the day I had hardly walked more than a few hundred yards. But it's surprising how you are uplifted by others: it was good to meet other Ovacome members but it was difficult trying to contact each other before the start. T-shirts were an added bonus, but maybe next time we could have a small logo on the back explaining what Ovacome is, as several people on the train asked us. It's good to read other people's letters and experiences which are often very encouraging. I have been fighting/living with ovarian cancer for eight years now and have recently had surgery to remove some glands in my right groin.

To date I have had four operations, one dose of radiotherapy and numerous courses of chemo. However, life is still good. My husband and I have recently been on a superb all-expenses-paid cruise and along with our teenage daughter are off to La Gomera. I try to go to the gym three times a week for a short programme and also do one yoga class a week. I have one Reiki treatment per month and the rest of my spare time is spent trying to drum up some enthusiasm for mundane jobs such as dusting, washing and ironing.

I am very lucky because I do have a wonderful husband and whilst my daughter is going through the terrible teens she can be very caring and helpful too! I have many relatives and friends whom I meet regularly for coffee or shopping trips and who are always there if I'm feeling a bit sorry for myself, which thankfully is very rare.

My main passion is Cliff Richard whom I have worshipped from afar since I was 12 (now 52) and I've already got my tickets to see him in his next concert.I do hope my note will help other women realise that even though we have to put up with treatments and medics, life can still be full and exciting.
Linda Morton
Enfield, London

Xmas cheer
All of us in the office would like to thank Sandar (right), the phlebotomist who is part of the ovarian cancer screening Project at Barts, for managing to sell over £300 worth of Christmas cards for us. She obviously has a special talent for 'selling' because women who only wanted one pack would almost always go away with more than one - sometimes even six packs!

Windsor Half Marathon
It started off as a drunken pub bet in the spring of 2002, but the challenge was laid down and, as the hangovers cleared, the consequences of drunken bravado became clear to the nine runners - somehow we had agreed to run the Windsor half marathon. Of course, some of the runners were already fit and experienced, but there were also a number of first-timers.

It was decided to ensure that to keep our focus we would run for a charity. We were made aware of Ovacome by a friend who has been helped by your selves and adopted Ovacome as our charity of choice.

The day arrived sooner than most people had anticipated and with a starting field of 6000, the air was thick with anticipation - had we all trained properly? The girls had organised food and beer for post-race fortification: all we had to do was run the 13.5 miles through the rolling hills of Windsor Great Park.

All runners completed the course with no serious injuries and on reflection enjoyed the experience! Tales of particularly tough sections were exchanged over cold beers and as the sun set it was home to treat sore legs and tired feet. The total raised by the group (pictured above left) was £2004.

Great South Run
A group of seven runners known as the 'Georgians' - the name originated during a convivial evening at the George Inn at Finchdean back in April 2001 - collected a grand sum of £200 sponsorship money for their supreme efforts in participating, indeed completing the Great South Run at Southsea on the 9th September.

Major sponsors, besides many friends and family, included Toni and Guy, The George Inn at Finchdean and the Well Hill Neighbourhood Watch (Denmead).

Rosemary goes to Nice

Rosemary Williams travelled to Nice last October to speak on behalf of Ovacome at the annual conference of the European Society for Medical Oncology. The subject of her talk was 'How European Cancer Patients can Make a Difference', part of a special symposium during the second full day of the conference.

I talked about how we had discovered Ovacome when I became a cancer patient, and then outlined the charity and the support it offers patients and their families, given that it is the only ovarian cancer charity in the UK.

As the audience consisted mainly of medical oncologists from Europe and around the world, it was a good opportunity to talk about initiatives like 'GP awareness' and 'Adopt a hospital'. I felt that this was particularly important given that the purpose of the session was for the medical professionals to look at ways to improve communication between patients and themselves.

I went on to talk about how I'd become involved with Ovacome's committee, and how this in turn has led to me becoming a patient representative on a Welsh gynae oncology steering group. The talk seemed well received, and afterwards I gave numerous interviews to the media, including one which recently went out on Riviera Radio.

I was able to attend the very first patient seminar to be held by ESMO, which had taken place two days previously, and was attended by one hundred and sixty two patients mainly from around Europe, but some from further afield.

The day included sessions beginning with a patient's guide to cancer, its treatment and new developments, where initiatives including having a vaccine available for cervical cancer and some forms of leukaemia within five years were discussed. The seminar came to a close with workshops of the individual's choice on subjects like pain control and alternative complementary treatments.

The strongest patient representation was from breast cancer patients (in Europe bowel cancer is known as colorectal;) but I was unable to locate any other ovarian cancer patients. I met many kind and inspirational people, (including Jean Mossman, former chief executive of CancerBACUP and James Mackay who is Ovacome's advisor on genetic concerns) and picked up other useful organisational contacts for Ovacome.

The overall impression I will carry with me is the current level of optimism that oncologists have for the future about what they are continuing to learn and understand about the disease and its control, and can only help to give encouragement to us as patients.