“When I found out that it was ovarian cancer, I felt so guilty,” says Anna DeMers, 63, a stage 1C ovarian cancer survivor. The reason DeMers felt guilty, she says, wasn’t that she felt as though she had caused her cancer, but rather that she feared her diagnosis would upend the life that she and her husband had built together.
“Knowing that it was ovarian cancer and how dire the possibility of diagnosis could be and what the financial ramifications could be made me feel like I was making this horrendous impact on our lives,” DeMers remembers, explaining that, at the time of her diagnosis, her husband was retired and she was working as the breadwinner. She had six more years to go until she could retire. “I was afraid that we wouldn’t be able to have the dream life that we had been working for,” she says.
But despite DeMers’ fears and feelings of guilt at the onset, she looks back on her cancer journey with tremendous gratitude — both for the care team at OSHU, where she was treated, and for the rock-solid support system from her husband.
“He let me cry, lay on the floor, he went and bought chocolate chip cookies for me… he was there every step of the way.”
De Mers recognizes now that cancer changes everything — permanently. “You think, ‘If I just get well, I can go back to the old me… I can go back and be that person that I was before diagnosis,” she says. “And what you forget is that that person doesn’t exist anymore… cancer changes everything.”
Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.
“When I found out that it was ovarian cancer, I felt so guilty,” says Anna DeMers, 63, a stage 1C ovarian cancer survivor. The reason DeMers felt guilty, she says, wasn’t that she felt as though she had caused her cancer, but rather that she feared her diagnosis would upend the life that she and her husband had built together.
“Knowing that it was ovarian cancer and how dire the possibility of diagnosis could be and what the financial ramifications could be made me feel like I was making this horrendous impact on our lives,” DeMers remembers, explaining that, at the time of her diagnosis, her husband was retired and she was working as the breadwinner. She had six more years to go until she could retire. “I was afraid that we wouldn’t be able to have the dream life that we had been working for,” she says.
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But despite DeMers’ fears and feelings of guilt at the onset, she looks back on her cancer journey with tremendous gratitude — both for the care team at OSHU, where she was treated, and for the rock-solid support system from her husband.
“He let me cry, lay on the floor, he went and bought chocolate chip cookies for me… he was there every step of the way.”
De Mers recognizes now that cancer changes everything — permanently. “You think, ‘If I just get well, I can go back to the old me… I can go back and be that person that I was before diagnosis,” she says. “And what you forget is that that person doesn’t exist anymore… cancer changes everything.”
Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.
