Ovarian Cancer Alliance of Oregon and Southwest Washington

Trust Your Gut
Awareness Campaign

Trust Your Gut Awareness Campaign

Real life super heroes share life-saving messages about ovarian cancer to promote early detection.

Utilizing eye-catching graphics and assorted media, Trust Your Gut amplifies ovarian cancer awareness far and wide. Early diagnosis saves lives.

Every 24 minutes, a woman is diagnosed with ovarian cancer. It is the 11th most-common cancer among women and the 5th leading cause of cancer-related deaths.

The vast majority (85%) of women diagnosed with ovarian cancer are diagnosed in stages III and IV, just 46% of these women live beyond five years. However, there is good news…92% of women diagnosed in the early stages survive over 5 years.

We created this campaign because early diagnosis is key to changing these grim statistics. Because there is no screening test for ovarian cancer, education is essential.

There is no early detection test for ovarian cancer, so most cases are diagnosed when the disease has advanced. Learn the early warning signs; it could save your life.

Know the warning signs

Bloating

Difficult eating, feeling full quickly

Abdominal or pelvic pain

Frequent or urgent need to urinate

#1
Cause of gynecological cancer deaths
15%
Of ovarian cancer cases are diagnosed in the early stages
92%
of women diagnosed in the early stages survive over 5 years
Kathie Luecker

Kathie Luecker was just 54 when diagnosed with ovarian cancer; she died one year later at 55. In 2015, the Ovarian Cancer Alliance of Oregon and SW Washington received a bequest from the estate of Katherine Z. Luecker. The Trust Your Gut super hero campaign was created with funds from Kathie’s generous and meaningful gift, and in concert with her wishes for increased awareness of the symptoms of ovarian cancer.

Meet Our Heroes

Jasmin

No one knows your body as well as you do. Sure, doctors are well trained and know what they’re doing. But nothing takes the place of your intuition about your health.

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Mary

As an ovarian cancer survivor, I can tell you that cancer sucks. Chemo sucks. But life is awesome. I’ve chosen not to let cancer define me or hold me back. I’m still here to share my story.

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Peg

As a physical therapist and a longtime runner I thought I knew my body. Imagine my surprise when I received a diagnosis of IIIC ovarian cancer.

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Phyllis

I knew something was wrong. I could feel a mass in my abdomen. Yet my primary care doctor wanted to wait and see. But I said, ‘No way!’

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Sherry

Persistence should be my middle name. After three bouts of cancer I know one thing to be true. You have to be a fighter. I see myself as a gladiator. A warrior. For me, fighting means never giving up hope. I am living proof of that.

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Susan

Throughout my treatment for ovarian cancer, I always had this mantra playing in the back of my head. I’m healthy. I don’t smoke. I’m athletic and active. This shouldn’t be happening to me. But it did.

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How to get involved

Hang posters

Install one or two or six (!) individual Super Hero posters in your place of work—any work space will do: cafeteria, restroom, locker room, lobby, conference room.

Life size banners

We have a separate life-size banner (6′ x 3′) of each Super Hero, and we’d like to loan those out, individually or in a set, to any business, place of worship, gallery, coffee shop, hotel lobby, etc. Contact us to make arrangements.

Bookmark distribution

Contact us if you want to give out bookmarks, hang posters, talk to businesses, promote the campaign on social media, or otherwise help raise awareness of the early warning signs of ovarian cancer.

Make a donation to keep the campaign going

$500 sustains the campaign in the future
$180 buys 1,000 bookmarks
$100 helps reprint posters
$35 pays for a media/business kit