To tell Marta Morgado’s story we have to go back to May 2020. Marta had lost her mother in April and, after a few weeks, her abdomen began to dilate profusely, getting worse especially at night. At first she may have thought that her body might be reacting to stress – considering her recent loss – but as the volume of her abdomen increased, the rest of her body lost weight. “It looked like she was pregnant, but a pregnancy that was progressing very quickly. She felt unwell,” she says. Marta knew she was not pregnant and decided to go to her family doctor. She underwent tests on the same day and, after they had been analyzed, the doctor requested an urgent consultation at the IPO in Lisbon. “From then on I did more tests and it was confirmed that it was advanced stage ovarian cancer”.
The mother had died due to leukemia, reliving some processes was as if “I was living in a movie”, something that wasn’t real. She already knew the songs at the IPO in Lisbon, but now she was the one caught by the disease, the protagonist of what was expected to be a long path.
“Don’t be afraid to ask for help, it’s difficult to do everything alone”
After the first surgery, in which they did not remove all of the cancer due to her physical weakness (she weighed 47 kilos), Marta and the doctors also decided not to continue with chemotherapy. “She felt very weak, it was possible that I wouldn’t resist”, she explains. Instead, he was given a medication, “a hormone blocker”, which proved to be effective and kept the cancer at bay for three years. Until, in the summer of last year, the tests she had done every two months since she started treatment showed that something was not right. The cancer had come back stronger and, this time, it was even more metastasized. “The recurrence cost me more,” she admits. The metastases she had required “higher risk” surgery, but even though she was aware of this, Marta did not imagine that after the intervention on several organs, she would have to be hospitalized for three months. She stopped eating, speaking, walking, but the doctors guarantee that there is no longer any illness, that “everything has been removed”.
At this moment – when she is recovering her motor and cognitive abilities – and still in the aftermath of the extensive surgery she underwent, Marta Morgado leaves some advice for all women: “don’t wait, see a doctor you empathize with, if you don’t find one at first, look for an alternative, and don’t be afraid to ask for help because it’s difficult to do everything alone”.
Family support and the power of patient associations
In Marta’s case, her closest family (daughter, sister and father) has been her great pillar of support, as has the MOG association (Ovarian Cancer and Other Gynecological Cancer Movement). The association’s objective is simple: to improve the lives of patients and their families, as they also suffer a lot during the entire process. “We have husbands and fathers of patients, for example, who follow our activities”, says Marta, who is also part of the organization’s structure. As it is a rare cancer – around 600 new cases per year in Portugal – the association ends up being the best place to find people who are going through the same challenges, who have similar questions and doubts, making the path of those with ovarian cancer less lonely.
See, below, Marta Morgado’s testimony on the SIC television program, Alô Portugal.
More research and equity in access
For oncologist Filipa Silva, from the Champalimaud Foundation, It is crucial to make an investment in innovation – to be able to implement a screening method – so that ovarian cancer can be diagnosed early. It should be remembered that, as it is a silent cancer, which presents few symptoms at the beginning, 80% of cases are diagnosed at an advanced stage.
“The symptoms at the beginning are quite mild and non-specific, only as the disease evolves and spreads do we begin to have more intense symptoms that make the woman seek help”, explains oncologist Filipa Silva
The most common signs are, for example, abdominal pain, pelvic pain, increased abdominal volume, epigastric pain, feeling full, changes in intestinal transit – such as diarrhea or constipation – and urinary complaints. “Any persistent complaint should make us seek medical help”, reinforces the specialist.
See HERE the guide on symptoms, risk factors and treatments that Expresso published on World Ovarian Cancer Day.
Filipa Silva also emphasizes the urgency for patients with ovarian cancer to be treated in reference centers. As it is a rare disease, “it does not make sense to have widespread treatment in all hospitals” because this approach also makes both the diagnosis and access to complementary tests and surgeries much more difficult. “It makes sense for there to be a kind of green lane, a fast track for patients to be treated in centers with the necessary experience”. Ultimately, if an early diagnosis is required, it must be accompanied by the ability to refer patients for timely and appropriate treatment.
“It is not enough to have innovation, we have to have faster access to this same innovation”, highlights the specialist, remembering that there is often a delay from the publication of the new medicine until it is allowed to be used in clinical practice.
Innovation also applies to medicines. Even though for many years the country was “without new treatments”, around “three, four years ago we were fortunate enough to discover some maintenance treatments that changed the paradigm of this disease”, says the oncologist at the Champalimaud Foundation, noting that even though Therefore, we are still far behind, and more research is needed for better prognoses. However, it is not enough to treat the disease; support is needed in psychological, nutritional and physiotherapeutic terms, among others. As Filipa Silva explains “there are many patients who complain about the lack of this support, that’s why we need a rehabilitation network”.
