Winnipeg woman shares experience living with cancer on World Ovarian Cancer Day

Winnipeg’s Terri McGraw was at a complete loss for words.

It was 2022 when McGraw was told by her doctor the cyst they had already been monitoring for two years was likely cancerous and had begun to spread.

“I was just stunned,” the 58-year-old said. “I had no idea and I didn’t even know how to respond. I didn’t know what type of questions to ask.

“It was devastating but more devastating for me was when I had a recurrence, knowing that I was now incurable.”

McGraw got the news nine months after completing chemotherapy.

“At that time I was only 55, I had two grandchildren,” she said. “I wanted to see my grandkids grow up. I still had a lot of life to live and so that was devastating for me.”

She says it all started as lower back aches and pressure in her pelvis in 2020. Doctors discovered through an ultrasound she had an ovarian cyst.

“Ovarian cysts are, they’re a dime a dozen, so to speak,” she said. “They’re very common, they’re not usually a big deal. We’re not really worried about them, so I then wasn’t really worried.”

A gynecologist asked her to check back in three months, but that was during the COVID-19 pandemic, and three months became nine months.

In January 2021, doctors became a bit more concerned about the possibility of cancer when two cysts – more like a tumor – were discovered. McGraw faced that possibility on her own, with her husband waiting in the car due to COVID protocols.

An MRI in February 2022 led doctors to believe they were indeed dealing with cancer, something that was eventually confirmed by an oncologist.

“And the results came back, given to me by my family doctor, and it showed that I already had some spreading of the ovarian cancer in my pelvis,” she recounted.

But with her husband and family by her side, and bolstered by her Christian faith, McGraw chose to approach the diagnosis with positivity – and some fight.

“We were lying in bed awake in the middle of the night, we’d both woken up. And just out of the blue I said to my husband, ‘I am not gonna die from this.’ And he said, ‘no, you are not.’

“There are hard days and there are days that aren’t as hard, but I feel like instead of having the mindset of, I have a terminal illness or I’m dying of ovarian cancer, I feel like I’m living with ovarian cancer.”

Now, on World Ovarian Cancer Day, McGraw says she’s sharing her experience and telling women to look for changes in their bodies, and see a doctor if they think something is wrong.

“Because the world needs to know that ovarian cancer exists and that we need help fighting this horrible disease,” she said, adding healthy living and a good support system are crucial to get through a diagnosis and treatments.

“Whether it’s 20 more minutes or 20 more years, I don’t want to look back and have regrets thinking I was too busy to get to know my grandkids or I was too busy to spend time with my parents.”

Now McGraw spends her time with family, out at the lake, riding bikes and napping.

“And I choose to spend my energy on those that I love and the things that are important to me.”