As a working mom with a lot of responsibilities on the job and at home, Alvina Nadeem did what many women tend to do – shrug off tiredness and lack of appetite, chalking it up to the stress of her every day. Who doesn’t get tired and not feel like cooking or eating sometimes? The trouble was these were early signs that something was wrong with her health. In hindsight, she realizes she could have listened more closely to her body and done something about it sooner.
It’s a lesson she’d like others to hear.
Back in February 2023, these ongoing symptoms caught her attention and concern. “I thought, ‘I’m a mom, I have little kids, work, whatever,’” says Alvina, 37, a change management consultant in Repentigny, a suburb of Montreal. “But it didn’t make sense because there was no real reason to be stressed. I was looking at my life, and I’m like, ‘Why would I be stressed? I’m okay. I have a good work-life balance; things are going well.’ So, it was like a little question mark that needed an answer in the back of my head.”
Then, her monthly period, which typically happened like clockwork, started nine days earlier than usual, and the weirdness intensified when she had bad menstrual cramps as well. She wasn’t someone who usually had the discomfort of cramps. Worse, the cramping didn’t stop and neither did the bleeding. It also had become a darker colour and “just didn’t seem right.”
Diagnosed with ovarian cancer
That March, Alvina was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, the most fatal gynecological cancer. Vague symptoms like bloating and lower back pain and the lack of a screening test mean that it’s usually diagnosed at very advanced stages where the cancer has spread throughout the body. Because the tumour can be a mix of different types of constantly evolving cancer cells, with some cells vulnerable to chemotherapy while others aren’t, the chemo treatment is less effective, and statistics are grim. About 3,000 people are diagnosed in Canada each year, and 2,000 die from the disease,
according to Ovarian Cancer Canada
.