our precious pearls pt. 1: ovarian cancer awareness month

As little girls, we were so dreamy. We loved to dress up in mommy’s clothes, walk around the house in her high heels (not getting very far because the experience turned into a balancing act), and we played in her jewelry, admiring her diamond earrings on our ears and the string of pearls that draped our necks.

We couldn’t wait until we were grown up enough to wear these trinkets on our first date, to prom or even to church. As we anticipated our maturity, the changes in our bodies started simultaneously. In what seems an overnight sensation, we wake up 20 years later and our hormones are raging, we’ve been menstruating for two decades and the two precious lumps that formed under our nightgown, what seems like just yesterday, no longer receive as much attention.

We were so passionate about puberty and being women, unaware that the scripture that reads “To whom much is given, much is required,” would be relevant in so many facets of our lives: our finances, relationships and, more surprisingly, our health. Now that we have these precious pearls that make us women — breasts and ovaries, it’s up to us to properly monitor them and address all irregularities.

September is national Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month and I am urging women to reconnect to their bodies and honor, revere and constantly examine these symbols of femininity that once excited them as teenagers.

The shape and size of almonds, ovaries are a potent pair of organs in the female reproductive system. Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of death from gynecologic cancers in the U.S. and the fifth leading cause of cancer death among women in the U.S. In 2008, the American Cancer Society estimates that 21,650 women will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
–yvette caslin

For more information, visit www.cancer.org. Be sure to read “Our Precious Pearls pt. 2: Breast Cancer Awareness Month” in October.