What is being done about Ovarian Cancer????

When I first heard the news about my mom’s cancer I went through the normal feelings of fear, sadness, disbelief and pretty much anything else you could come up with. Then as it settled in and we began to move through the steps of fighting her disease I had a new feeling. I felt powerless. There was really nothing I could do besides be there for her and my family.

As most of you know I am not the type to sit by and let the world go round with out me being onboard. So, I searched and looked and it soon became apparent that there were plenty of sites for ovarian cancer as my brother has already provided, but not too much about what’s being done to increase awareness. Then I came across Johanna's Law

Johanna’s Law is a currently a bill in the House that is in a nut shell a national awareness program for Gynecologic Cancers. It’s official name is Johanna’s Law: The Gynecologic Cancers Education and Awareness Act of 2005. The website offered information on how the bill was initiated, but left no updates on it’s status in the house. So last week I called Congressman Mike Ferguson of the NJ-7 and left a message for his Health Legislative Assistant whom I figured would not return my call.

Today, I surprisingly received a call from Mr. Tom Fussaro who is Congressman Ferguson’s Health L.A. We spoke at length for over 45 minutes about the bill, where it stands and what’s in it’s way of becoming a law. Apparently to keep it short and sweet this bill is being held up because the chair of the committee (commerce & energy) is not willing to move on any disease specific bills until they can pass reform with the National Institute of Health. There is a lot more to all of this then I am leaving here, but the bottom line is Congressman Joe Barton of Texas who is the committee chair is not willing to move until he gets his NIH reform which from what I have heard so far is much needed.

Over the next few days I plan to be in touch with Congressman Barton’s office as well as the office of Congressman Darrell Issa of California who created this wonderful bill. There is a lot to be done and a lot we can do as citizens. When I know more about who to contact and who’s office to bombard with mailings, emails and phone calls I will let you all know.

There is so much being done about so many other diseases, and now it’s time to add some new ones to the game. We need the doctors to be educated and aware of all the subtleties of ovarian cancer. We need the general public to be educated as well about the sign and symptoms so we have fewer deaths from this horrible disease. Today it is very rare to catch ovarian cancer in an early stage. The old saying about ovarian cancers was that it was the Silent Killer. Today though the slogan is a little different, Ovarian Cancer it’s not silent, it whispers. Today we know more about it. We know there are signs and symptoms that have gone unchecked so many times. So let’s see what we can do to change that name once again to something like Ovarian Cancer….used to be pretty bad, but now we have our act together and we just kick the crap out of it.

Thanks,
Charlie