Updated January 2nd, 2026

Mom, 42, Diagnosed With Ovarian Cancer After Mistaking Symptoms As Sinus Infection Urges Others To ‘Still Live Your Life’ During a Health Struggle

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Avoiding Misdiagnosis: Why Multiple Opinions Matter

Jessica Gilbert, a 42-year-old mother of two from Cincinnati, Ohio was diagnosed with stage 3C ovarian cancer after initially mistaking her symptoms for a sinus infection, and she’s now sharing her journey to raise awareness, encourage early detection, and inspire others to cherish life despite serious illness.
Ovarian cancer has been called the “cancer that whispers,” because women often don’t experience symptoms until their cancer has already reached its late stages.
SurvivorNet offers a comprehensive guide to ovarian cancer features advice from some of the nation’s top gynecologic oncologists, to guide you through every stage of the diagnosis and treatment process. Check out SN Local, featuring 20 cities across the U.S., to explore expertise and community near you.
When it comes to your health, it’s okay to advocate for yourself. You understand your body better than anyone, so if something doesn’t feel right, speak up.
From a doctor’s perspective, every problem should have a diagnosis, a treatment, a plan for follow-up, and a plan for what happens next if the treatment doesn’t work.

Jessica Gilbert, a mother of two, was just 42 when she was diagnosed with stage 3C ovarian cancer after initially mistaking her symptoms for a sinus infection. Now, the resilient Cincinnati, Ohio, resident is sharing her journey to raise awareness about the disease and inspire others to embrace life to the fullest.

Recounting her story to ABC News, Gilbert said flu-like symptoms arose while prepping for a family vacation for her 11-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son, explaining, “I woke up with a fever, and I thought it was a sinus infection because I had a stuffy head all week.

“I decided to go to my [primary care] doctor to get COVID, flu, [and] RSV tests, and they all came back negative.”

Unsure if it was a sinus infection or low iron, she underwent blood tests that ultimately sent her to the emergency room for additional evaluation—leading to her diagnosis.

Jessica Gilbert pictured with her husband and their two children (GoFundMe)

Gilbert, who had no family history of the disease and admitted she “didn’t know anything” about ovarian cancer or its symptoms, chose to share her story publicly in hopes of helping other women prevent the same experience.

Writing in a Facebook post, she explained further, “I told the doctor I thought I had a sinus infection. I tested negative for flu, COVID, and RSV, so I received a prescription for antibiotics and headed home to rest before leaving the next morning. The doctor called and said my white blood count was low and advised me to get another test in the morning.

“I went at 8 am the next morning, feeling better with a small temperature but thought I could drive okay. I told the doctor I was headed to Florida unless she thought I shouldn’t. She called and said the labs came back, and my white blood count had dropped lower. I needed to go to the ER for more tests and an antibiotic IV. It was packed at UC West Chester ER. We stood in the corner away from everyone, and the nurse got me in right away so I didn’t catch anything out there. They started IVs and testing immediately. The nurse said they were treating me for sepsis. I was like, what in the world? I didn’t realize this could be from a sinus infection. They said they would do all the testing to find out. Everything came back fine until we received the results for the CT scan of my abdomen.”

Now undergoing targeted maintenance therapy after chemotherapy and surgery, she says she is focused on being present and savoring life.

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She told ABC News, “I went on the roller coaster with my son a couple weeks ago … and that meant the world to me.

“I missed out on some things but I still was at my daughter’s dance recital during chemo with my mask on, so I could be there for her.”

Gilbert then urged anyone battling cancer or a heath condition to “take care of yourself, but get out there and still live your life.”

She also urged on Facebook, “??????, ??????, ?? ??? ??? ??????? ??? ?? ???? ??????? ??? ??????? ??? ?????????, ??? ??? ? ?? ???? ?? ???. It can be cramping or a bloated feeling but not even constantly. Ultrasounds won’t always pick it up. ?????? ???? ???? ??????????? ???? ???????? ??????? ??????. It literally wasn’t even on my radar, and I had no clue what symptoms might look like.”

A GoFundMe set up for Gilbert, which has since raised more than $25,000 of it’s $40,000 goal, explains how the mom of two was diagnosed with Stage 3C Ovarian Cancer.

“Her dream is to be healthy and happy for her children without worrying which home they will grow up in should something happen to her,” the GoFundMe reads.

“This journey will not be easy, but with your help, we can make it just a little bit more manageable for Jessica, Harry and their children. Any amount you can contribute—whether big or small—will be a blessing.”

We respect Gilbert’s perspective on facing a health struggle, and her determination to live life fully while battling ovarian cancer, which brings to mind advice previously shared with SurvivorNet by Dr. Samantha Boardman, a New York–based psychiatrist and author.

Dr. Boardman emphasized that when dealing with new challenges, it’s important to lean on coping strategies that help protect and sustain mental well-being along the way.

“I think flexibility is really a core of how to manage it,” Dr. Samantha Boardman said. “Are your coping strategies that you’re using now, are they helpful in the way that they were in the past?”

SurvivorNetTV Presents: Breaking the Cycle The Power of Mindset

Dr. Boardman encourages people who may be struggling with their mental well-being to take stock of their belief system and ask themselves the following questions:

Could these beliefs be harming me (like feelings of self-doubt or negativity)?
Is my mindset holding me back from positive steps forward?

Dr. Boardman suggests working to recognize any negative thoughts that may be making the process of cancer treatment more difficult, and trying to dismantle those to be more “realistically optimistic.”

Understanding Ovarian Cancer

Ovarian cancer has been called the “cancer that whispers” because women often don’t experience symptoms until their cancer has already reached its late stages. The symptoms that do appear at first are hard to identify as cancer.

“Ovarian cancer does not have any specific symptoms,” Dr. Beth Karlan, a gynecologic oncologist at UCLA Medical Center, told SurvivorNet.

The symptoms of ovarian cancer may include the following, according to SurvivorNet experts.

A feeling of bloating or fullness
Pain in the pelvis or abdomen
Nausea
Vomiting
Changes in bowel habits

WATCH: Treating ovarian cancer.

Meanwhile, a hysterectomy is a procedure that removes part or all of the uterus (or womb), often along with the cervix, according to the National Cancer Institute. Women who receive a diagnosis of uterine, ovarian, and cervical cancer may have their cancer treated with a hysterectomy.

The standard of care for ovarian cancer patients is chemotherapy, which helps many patients reach remission.

Ovarian cancer recurrence happens in “almost 25 percent of cases with early-stage diseases and in more than 80 percent with more advanced stages,” according to research published in Gland Surgery medical journal.

With recurrence a strong possibility for this disease, especially in the later stages of ovarian cancer, certain drug treatments to deal with it are giving many women hope.

Maintenance therapy is continued treatment after the patient finishes their initial treatment. After an ovarian cancer patient completes a round of treatments — such as surgery and chemotherapy — her doctor may recommend some form of maintenance therapy to try and delay possible recurrence. Maintenance therapy can involve taking an oral pill called a PARP inhibitor every day after chemotherapy and can keep cancer in remission longer.

Genetic testing helps doctors determine the best maintenance therapy.

WATCH: How your ovarian cancer responds to certain types of chemotherapies guides your future treatments.

Staging Ovarian Cancer

While medical professionals use the staging of ovarian cancer to analyze how serious the illness is, how best to treat it and to provide a discussion about survival statistics, Dr. Beth Karlan previously told SurvivorNet that, “The staging of cancers is really to help us with a dialogue, and the honesty of our outcome.”

She explained that if you detect any symptoms of ovarian cancer, and a visit to your doctor confirms the diagnosis, then the next step would be discussing the stage of your illness.

Stage I – Confined to the ovary
Stage II – Spread to pelvic structures
Stage III – Spread to abdominal structures
Stage IV – Spread outside the abdomen or inside the liver or spleen

As a general rule, the lower the stage ovarian cancer, the less the cancer has spread.

How Serious is My Illness? ‘Staging’ Ovarian Cancer

Stage one refers to the earliest stage. At this point, it is limited to one or both ovaries, and is considered a confined form of the cancer; it has not spread to distant sites in the body. Stage two is when the cancer has spread from one or both ovaries to other organs in the pelvis, which can include the side walls of the pelvis, one or both fallopian tubes, the back of the uterus and the rectum or sigmoid colon.

With stage three, the cancer is in one or both ovaries, and has spread beyond the pelvis area to the upper abdomen, either to the omentum (a fatty apron that stretches over the abdomen), or other surfaces within the abdomen, such as along the diaphragm, the surface of the liver or the spleen, or possibly, nearby lymph nodes. At this stage, it has still not spread to distant sites. Finally, with stage four, the cancer cells have spread beyond the abdominal cavity to other organs: tumors inside your liver (not just on the surface), inside the spleen, in and around the lungs or other organs outside the abdomen and pelvic region, and possibly to the bones.

Several factors go into deciding on what kind of treatment is best, depending on the type and stage of ovarian cancer, the age of the woman and whether she is planning to have children in the future. But surgery is usually the first treatment recommended, with chemotherapy for use after treatment.

For all four stages of ovarian cancer, two specific chemotherapy drugs are usually suggested. Chemotherapy is usually injected into a vein with an IV, given orally, or, in some cases, may be administered through a catheter directly into the abdominal cavity. There are currently two chemotherapies currently considered the backbone for the initial treatment of ovarian cancer.

“We do know that two medicines together are better than one,” says Dr. Karlan.

Understanding The Stages and Grades of Ovarian Cancer

Usually, a platinum compound (carboplatin), which kills ovarian cancer cells, and a taxane like paclitaxel (a chemical compound originally derived from plants, which interferes with the growth of cancer cells) are the therapies used. These two drugs are usually given as an IV into the vein, every three to four weeks.

Although, as with any chemotherapy, side effects can occur, Dr. Karlan tells us that even during this treatment, most women should be able to go about most of their daily routines, whether it is working or running a carpool, with the caveat that they will most likely feel more fatigue than normal.

“I say most, because they are going to be more tired. Nobody’s typical activity includes coming to a hospital for chemotherapy,” notes Dr. Karlan. After treatment, most women should be able to resume just about all their normal activities.

Taking Control of Your Ovarian Cancer Risk

Avoiding Provider Bias – Is Your Doctor Understanding You?

While your doctor has undergone years of training and practice, they are still human, and may come with their own set of biases that can impact how they treat patients.

To combat these biases and really get the most out of your interactions with your doctor, you should provide her or him with plenty of information about your life and ask plenty of questions when things aren’t clear. To better understand how you should approach conversations with your doctor, we previously spoke with Dr. Dana Chase, gynecologic oncologist at Arizona Oncology.

According to Dr. Chase, physicians, like many of us, can be a bit biased when seeing patients. She made it clear that these biases are rarely sinister, but rather unconscious and more subtle.

She explained, “We have certain beliefs that we don’t know about. We might look, for example, at an older woman, and just by the way she looks we might make certain assumptions, and we might not even know that we’re making these assumptions.”

Let’s Talk About Provider Bias

Clearing up misconceptions is important, but so is understanding what your doctor is telling you, Dr. Chase noted. Overall, she advises women to speak up and ask questions when they don’t understand something.

“It’s never a bad thing to ask for something to be repeated, or to ask the doctors to explain it in different terms.”

So next time you go to your physician, speak up if you need clarity, so your doctor can understand you and you can understand them.

Dr. Steven Rosenberg is the National Cancer Institute Chief of Surgery, and he previously told SurvivorNet about the advantages of getting input from multiple doctors.

Cancer research legend urges patients to get multiple opinions.

“If I had any advice for you following a cancer diagnosis, it would be, first, to seek out multiple opinions as to the best care. Because finding a doctor who is up to the latest of information is important,” Dr. Rosenberg said.