Silent symptoms

Awareness campaign launched for ovarian cancer

Amy Lasseigne of Maumelle holds a photograph of her mother, Suzanne Holland, who died in 2016 of ovarian 
cancer. Lasseigne and her mother, along with two other women, founded the Arkansas Ovarian Cancer Coalition in 2009 to bring awareness to the silent symptoms of the disease. It is holding its annual fundraiser, TEAL Light Night from 7-10:30 p.m. Friday at the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock. September is National Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month.
Amy Lasseigne of Maumelle holds a photograph of her mother, Suzanne Holland, who died in 2016 of ovarian cancer. Lasseigne and her mother, along with two other women, founded the Arkansas Ovarian Cancer Coalition in 2009 to bring awareness to the silent symptoms of the disease. It is holding its annual fundraiser, TEAL Light Night from 7-10:30 p.m. Friday at the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock. September is National Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month.

Amy Lasseigne of Maumelle isn’t keeping quiet about the silent symptoms of ovarian cancer, which took her mother’s life in 2016.

Lasseigne and her mother, the late Suzanne Holland of Maumelle, along with two other women, co-founded the Arkansas Ovarian Cancer Coalition in 2009.

The organization, which is 100 percent funded by donations, is releasing public-service announcements to spread the word about the disease, which affects one out of every 72 women. September is National Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month.

“It’s a nasty cancer, and we just really want women to understand the symptoms and, if all these dots connect for more than three weeks at a time, see the doctor. If you’re not satisfied with the answer, it’s OK to get another opinion.”

Lasseigne made a video with her stepfather, Paul Holland of Maumelle. The video is called “Suzanne’s family journey with ovarian cancer” and is available on YouTube.

In the video, photos of Holland and her family through the years are shown as Lasseigne talks about her mother. She said her mother was always on the go. “She loved to ride bikes; she loved to go camping; she was very active in her church.”

Holland was diagnosed at age 58 and died nine years later, just before her 68th birthday. Lasseigne said the symptoms of ovarian cancer are sneaky, and her mother had a couple of them for years.

“Symptoms are bloating, changes in your bowel habits, feeling full quickly, lower abdominal pain, pain during sex, UTI [urinary tract infection] sensations that aren’t UTIs,” she said.

Lasseigne said that because the symptoms are usually so subtle and can be mistaken for other conditions, only about 20 percent of ovarian cancer is found in the early stages.

“It’s called the silent disease; the disease that whispers,” she said, adding that ovarian cancer is the fifth leading cause of cancer-related deaths of women in the United States.

“Mother felt full for years. Her portion size on her plates got smaller and smaller. She said, ‘I’m just not hungry,’” Lasseigne said.

Her mother also thought she had a UTI just before she was diagnosed with cancer, Lasseigne said.

“She’s my best friend; I talked to her every day,” Lasseigne said.

Holland told Lasseigne she was drinking cranberry juice to help what she thought was an infection. She also told Lasseigne that she’d tripped on vinyl tile and fell at work at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and thought she’d pulled a muscle in her groin. She said it was sore and she had a knot in her lower-left abdomen.

Holland’s doctor sent her for an MRI, and she then went to a gynecological oncologist. Holland had surgery, and Lasseigne said she and other family members were shocked when the doctor told them her mother had ovarian cancer.

It was carcinosarcoma of the ovaries, which is rare, Lasseigne said.

Lasseigne said her mother’s ovaries and uterus were removed during the first surgery, and Holland underwent chemotherapy treatments. They seemed to work.

“She was clean for three years, and it came back,” Lasseigne said. Her mother started a roller coaster of six months of chemotherapy, six months of seeming to be free of the disease and radiation treatments.

“If you get diagnosed early, the five-year survival rate is over 90 percent,” she said. “It comes back. If it doesn’t, you’re a very fortunate soul.”

It went to Holland’s lungs and, in January 2015, she decided to stop treatment. She died a year later.

Lasseigne said that in a year 220 women a year in Arkansas will be diagnosed, and 140 women will die from the disease. Nationally, 22,420 will be diagnosed; more than 14,000 will die.

“People don’t talk about that recurrence shock,” she said. “It kind of feels like a slap in the face. You feel like ‘I beat it; I won. I can go live life even better now and love on my grandbabies and retire,’” Lasseigne said.

Her mother took action instead of feeling sorry for herself, Lasseigne said.

Lasseigne said her mother told her, “I don’t want a support group; I don’t want to sit around and talk about my cancer; I want to help people with this. I’ve got to turn around and make good out of it.”

She and her mother attended an ovarian cancer awareness rally at the state Capitol, where they met the other women who with them would establish the Arkansas Ovarian Cancer Coalition: Alesa Garner of Little Rock, who directs the New Outlook cancer-recovery program at CHI St. Vincent, and Leah Anderson of Antioch, an ovarian cancer survivor.

Those women were involved in the Arkansas Cancer Coalition task force on ovarian cancer. Lasseigne said the task force, which no longer exists, received a small amount of money each year from the cancer coalition.

“We’re not going to make a lot of impact, we realized, with $1,500 a year to educate the state on ovarian cancer signs and symptoms. We realized if we wanted to make an impact, we had a choice to make — go out on our own or with a national group. We decided we wanted to keep all of our money here,” Lasseigne said.

Since the women established the Arkansas Ovarian Cancer Coalition, $20,000 annually has been raised for ovarian cancer education.

The coalition’s annual fundraiser, TEAL (Take Early Action and Live) Light Night, is scheduled for 7-10:30 p.m. Friday at the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock. During the event, the coalition will unveil its new awareness campaign.

The event will include live music, a silent auction, an Italian buffet, beverages and an audience-participation painting, which will be auctioned at the end of the evening. Lights will be displayed in honor and memory of loved ones affected by ovarian cancer. Each ticket holder will receive one light, but those not attending may purchase a light for $10. The downtown Little Rock bridges will be lit in teal to celebrate the evening and National Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month. Tickets may be purchased for $50 at arkansasovariancancer.org/tln. Tickets for survivors are free, but they must RSVP to Alesa Garner at agarner@stvincenthealth.com.

Lasseigne said “awareness campaigns were done here and there,” and the four women attend health fairs and have done speaking engagements.

“We saved our money to do the awareness campaign we just completed,” she said.

Former Gov. Mike Beebe participated in one video, too. “His mother passed from ovarian cancer. He’s been real helpful and an advocate for us,” Lasseigne said.

The ads and announcements will run through September, but Lasseigne hopes the impact will last much longer.

“At the end of the day, mom’s mission was, ‘I want to try to keep other women from having to go through this, or extend their life.’ If we could extend their life that’s even better,” Lasseigne said.

Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.

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