Ovarian Cancer Diagnosis Prompts a Change in Life Plans
- Marecya Burton was a 20-year-old college student when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
- She missed the symptoms, attributing them to normal aches and pains from cheerleading.
- Burton had to leave college to finish her treatment, giving up her plans of going to law school.
- Now a high school social studies teacher, she says she wouldn’t change careers “for the world.”
“I was definitely shocked,” she tells SurvivorNet. “When it hit me, it was, ‘Why me? What did I do?'”
Symptoms Missed
Read MoreDr. Jose Alejandro Rauh-Hain, gynecologic oncologist at MD Anderson Cancer Center, explains what symptoms should alert you to ovarian cancer
Ovarian cancer is often referred to as the “cancer that whispers.” The lack of clear warning signs is why only about 20% of women with this cancer are diagnosed at an early stage, when their cancer is easiest to treat.
Dreams Deferred
Instead of graduating from coIlege with her friends as she’d planned, Burton had to move back home and start treatment. “That was definitely challenging for me,” she says. “I was looking forward to graduating.”
She had planned to go to law school after graduation — plans that she had to give up. “I really had to, in a sense, put my life on hold,” she says. “Sometimes I look at where I am, and I can’t help but wonder, would I be further had I not had my diagnosis?”
Instead of pursuing law, Burton became a high school teacher. She now teaches social studies in Baltimore, Maryland, and she’s made peace with her new direction. “I wouldn’t change my career for the world,” she says. “It’s so fulfilling.”
Cancer-versary
Today, Marecya Burton is not only surviving, but thriving. Yet she calls the experience of surviving cancer “bittersweet.” Each year, the anniversary of her surgery date leaves her with mixed emotions.
Ovarian cancer surgery: What you need to know
“It’s a day that kind of ruined my life. But now I’m so grateful for my 29th birthday in July,” she says. This year, Burton and her friends celebrated the occasion by renting a yacht and sailing it down the Potomac River. Getting together with friends is one of the things that has helped to bring her peace, and has kept her moving forward.
She now applies the same energy that she once used to fight her cancer to “be fierce and just kick ass every day.”
“I think mentally, cancer will do what you allow it to do. And you really have to fight, mind, body, and spirit to get to a place where you are able to live as a survivor and not let it haunt you,” she says.
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