May 8th, 2023 was Ovarian Cancer Awareness Day. Had I not been home in Ireland packing to return to the USA, I would have posted on the day. Angelina Jolie shared on social media about her mother’s death following years of struggle with ovarian and breast cancer. Barack Obama’s mom died age 52 from the disease, as have so many other women around the world, including my brave & loving mother who died at age 50. Too many women have died from this disease.
I was 5 when Mam was diagnosed and 11 when she died. I knew for several years that the cancer was related to her ovaries and having babies, though I didn’t fully understand any of it at the time. As a result I’ve lived with some suspicion, fears & uncertainty related to my ovaries. These organs resulted in my mother’s death after all, at least from a little girl’s perspective. So, when Tami Kent, local author and founder of Holistic Pelvic Care shared an illustration by Sarai Llamas, an artist in Spain and Italy, I fell in love with the work and ordered a print from Sarai immediately.
For over two years, while I’ve polished and completed my memoir BRIEFLY I KNEW MY MOTHER, I’ve enjoyed this gorgeous work of art hanging on my office wall, reminding me of the preciousness, beauty and power of a woman’s body, her uterus and ovaries.
It isn’t necessarily my fate to get the same disease as my mother. As those of us who have close family members (in particular mothers and grandmothers) who have died from the disease know, we live the fears daily. As I write and share about the death of my mother when she was only 50, her ovarian cancer and the profound and lasting impacts of early mother loss on children, I hope to raise awareness of this deadly disease.
The American Cancer Society estimates that about 19,710 women will receive a new diagnosis of ovarian cancer in the US in 2023. And about 13,270 women will die from ovarian cancer in the United States this year. It’s a horrifying and disheartening number. Ovarian cancer ranks fifth in cancer deaths among women, accounting for more deaths than any other cancer of the female reproductive system. A woman’s risk of getting ovarian cancer during her lifetime is about 1 in 78. Her lifetime chance of dying from ovarian cancer is about 1 in 108. (These statistics don’t count low malignant potential ovarian tumors.) About half of the women who are diagnosed with ovarian cancer are 63 years or older. It is more common in White women than Black women.
In time perhaps a cure will be found.
Carmel Breathnach is a writer and former school teacher born in Ireland and living in Portland, Oregon. She holds a B.A. degree in English literature and Irish language studies from NUI Maynooth, and a Graduate Diploma in Education with honors from St. Patrick’s College, Dublin. Her writing centers on childhood grief and the long-term impacts of early mother loss. Carmel’s work has appeared in the New York Times, The Irish Times, Huffington Post, Upworthy, Scary Mommy, Voice Catcher, Modern Loss, Pendemic.ie, The Good Men Project, the anthology Hidden Lights: A Collection of Truths Not Often Told and on the National Alliance for Children’s Grief (NACG) website. She is currently querying her memoir titled Briefly I Knew My Mother.
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