Chris Evert Needs Everyone to Listen.

[elleng]

'Since January, the 18-time Grand Slam champion has balanced her work in tennis with the grueling routine of chemotherapy for ovarian cancer. She never would have caught it early, if she hadn’t lost her sister to the same disease.

All the medical advancements that helped save Chris Evert’s life could not save her sister. Jeanne Evert Dubin died of ovarian cancer in February 2020, at age 62, her illness discovered only after it had reached its deadliest stages.

The first indication for Chris that something was wrong came as she and her younger sister hustled through an airport terminal for a flight to Singapore for the women’s tennis championships. Chris saw that Jeanne, a former professional player herself, was breathing heavily, unable to keep up. Not long after that, Jeanne was diagnosed. Two years after that, she was gone.

“Why her?” Evert said recently in an office at the tennis academy that bears her last name. “I’m the older one. I’m supposed to go first. Sometimes I think that.”

Out of that sorrow came a critical warning for Evert, an alert she is determined to spread to the world so that other lives, like hers, can be saved, too.'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/27/sports/tennis/chris-evert-cancer-us-open.html

[cyclonefence]

1. Are there symptoms for ovarian cancer?

Last I checked, one reason it's so deadly is that there is no warning until it reached an advanced stage.

Ovarian cancer can be related to the BRCA gene, which most people think of as causing only breast cancer. This is not true. BRCA (both -1 and -2) can cause ovarian cancer, whether breast cancer is involved or not.

With a close relative developing ovarian cancer, I hope Chrissy Evert (and her female relatives--although men can have it and develop breast cancer) have been tested for BRCA. I'm sure she has, given what a high-profile person she is, but it's worthwhile for any woman who has a lot of breast/ovarian cancer in her family tree to be tested. I speak from experience.

[elleng]

2. Symptoms

When ovarian cancer first develops, it might not cause any noticeable symptoms. When ovarian cancer symptoms happen, they're usually attributed to other, more common conditions.

Signs and symptoms of ovarian cancer may include:

Abdominal bloating or swelling
Quickly feeling full when eating
Weight loss
Discomfort in the pelvic area
Fatigue
Back pain
Changes in bowel habits, such as constipation
A frequent need to urinate

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/ovarian-cancer/symptoms-causes/syc-20375941

[Trust_Reality]

3. Oh how I hope her chemo goes well and is not terribly unbearable.

My wife had nasty chemo for pancreatic cancer through most of 2020. (She looks very much like a survivor so far.)

Chemo is such a sorry excuse for medicine. It borders on being the current version of leaching. But it works for some portion of people who get it.

Chris Evert!

I watched Chrissy play as a very cute kid who could really play tennis. Then I watcher he as a 20-something, or older, who had become in my view one of the world's most beautiful, sexy women. I only saw her on TV, but loved her from afar.

Silly me.

Now she is showing the world another side. I love her for it.

I wish her well.