Ellen Kleinbaum was 41 and symptom-free — she thought — when she was diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer. ‘[My doctor] did a pelvic exam, and things happened quickly after that … I was in surgery within two weeks.”
Looking back, although she felt healthy, Ellen had been experiencing frequent urination, a subtle symptom of ovarian cancer. She loved walking around the lakes in her hometown of Minneapolis, but "I couldn’t get around without stopping at the outhouse. So the only symptom I had, even at this late stage, was having to pee all the time.” Suspecting a bladder problem, she made an appointment with her ob-gyn.
Read More Then came the diagnosis. "I had three teenagers, I was a single parent, and my life just fell apart,” Ellen says. Her doctor referred her to a respected gynecologic oncologist at University of Minnesota Health Cancer Care. “[It was] the best thing he could have ever done,” she says. “I thought it was for a consultation, but I left already being scheduled for chemotherapy.” Ellen went on to have six months of chemotherapy and a second-look surgery to be sure the cancer was gone. “And he pretty much saved my life," Ellen says.
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