Jenna Jenkins

November 2022

My name is Jenna, and I’m turning 50 years old in just a few short weeks. I celebrate getting older as I was diagnosed with stage III ovarian cancer shortly after my 35th birthday. I’ve now been cancer free for 15 years.

During the summer of 2007, I developed sharp pains in my stomach that wouldn’t go away. My primary care physician insisted I was experiencing indigestion. I could’ve easily left my doctor’s office that day and chalked my stomach pain up to “indigestion,” but I knew that this pain was definitely not that. I asked for more testing, and fortunately, my doctor listened. All my blood work was normal, but an ultrasound of my gallbladder showed gallstones. It was determined that this must be the cause of the pain, and my gallbladder was removed.

At first the stomach pain subsided, but then it came back. At this point, my doctor ordered an ultrasound of my ovaries. and this is when an ovarian cyst was discovered. Upon discovering the cyst, a CA 125 was ordered and came back elevated, but not high enough to be much of a concern. An exploratory surgery was scheduled on December 9, 2007, with a gynecological oncologist on standby to remove anything that looked suspicious. I was 35 years old, so my doctors believed that most likely we were dealing with a benign cyst.

I came out of surgery 12 hours later with a diagnosis of stage III ovarian cancer. I spent the next two years undergoing aggressive treatment while at the same time trying to give my four young children, who at the time were just 2, 3, 5 and 6 years old, as normal a life as possible. I spent those two years doing as much for myself as possible. Taking my kids to dance lessons and soccer practice definitely gave me a sense of the control you lose while undergoing cancer treatments. I even started running during that time, because this was also something that I could control for myself when the rest of my world was out of control.

To be honest, the two years I spent undergoing treatment were easier than the immediate years following my treatment. I was considered cancer-free and a survivor, but I lived with the constant fear of the cancer coming back. My friends, family, and faith helped me get through those years. It hasn’t been an easy road, but each year, I get a little more of my life back. My children are now 16, 18, 20 and 22, and all doing amazing. I even ran a couple of marathons from my training that started during chemo. I feel so blessed and so grateful for my support group and the amazing doctors who were in my corner from day one.