Teal Is The New Black

Last week Kelly Ripa, Electrolux, and the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund held a fashion “Rumpled to Runway” show to kick off National Ovarian Cancer Month and raise awareness about the disease. Kelly was an amazing host, introducing a bevy of beautiful mom bloggers as they strutted the runway in their own teal fashions, and then taking a turn on the catwalk herself, band-aid on her knee and all. Love her!

Check out highlights here:

What You Can Do

In addition to being a wonderful reminder that real women make more beautiful models, the event helped raise awareness of this awful disease. The event also brought to light some simple things that we can all do to raise much needed funds to fight it.

All month long, Electrolux is donating $200 to OCRF for every new Turquoise Sky Perfect Steam™ washer/dryer pair purchased. So if you need a new washer-dryer, definitely consider making a purchase that will directly benefit research in this area.

In addition, you can head over to Kelly-Confidential.com today, tomorrow…and every other day in September and raise $1 for Ovarian Cancer Research. Every day you press the Perfect Steam™ button online to take your garments from rumpled to runway-ready, Electrolux will donate $1 to OCRF, plus you’ll be entered for a chance to win a shopping spree between $50 and $250 and the grand prize: a luxury washer and dryer from Electrolux. It’s so easy – it takes about 5 seconds to do…we hope you do it every day – we are!

The Importance of Awareness

Ovarian cancer is an insidious disease that can strike at any time. Low awareness of the disease coupled with symptoms that can be vague and subtle makes disease more difficult to diagnose. There isn’t an effective screening test for ovarian cancer either – your annual pap smear only screens for cervical cancer. But there are tests which can detect ovarian cancer when patients are at high risk or have early symptoms. In spite of this patients are usually diagnosed in advanced stages and only 45% survive longer than five years. Only 19% of cases are caught before the cancer has spread beyond the ovary to the pelvic region. However, when ovarian cancer is detected and treated early on, the five-year survival rate is greater than 92%. Bottom line: awareness is a critical component of catching the disease early enough so that it can be successfully treated.

So, what exactly do you need to look for?
• Bloating
• Pelvic and/or abdominal pain
• Difficulty eating or feeling full quickly
• Urinary symptoms (urgency or frequency)

Several other symptoms have been commonly reported by women with ovarian cancer including fatigue, indigestion, back pain, pain with intercourse, constipation, and menstrual irregularities. Read here for a more complete information.
If you have any of these symptoms for more than a few weeks, you should absolutely talk to your gynecologist about them.