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March is the month of the year dedicated to raising awareness of Ovarian Cancer.  It seems to me that Ovarian Cancer is the Cinderella of the cancers affecting predominantly women.  'Eleven Thousand Steps' has been chosen by 'Target Ovarian Cancer' as a daily target for sponsorship to represent the 11 women who die from Ovarian Cancer every day.  Each day that I walk my 11,000 steps I will be aware that 11 women are dying, one for each 1000 steps.  A rather sobering thought.

Each year around 7000 women are diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer and each year 4000 die.  The 10 year survival rate is 35%, while for Breast Cancer, which receives so much publicity and research it is 76%.  Breast Cancer has Mammogram Screening, Cervical Cancer, the Smear test and Endometrial Cancer has clearly recognisable symptoms.  Unfortunately, Ovarian Cancer has none of these and the greater proportion of sufferers are diagnosed at Stages 3 -4.  There are treatments which help extend life expectancy but these are few so that prevention of late diagnosis is, at present, the single most important thing we can do.

Spreading awareness of the varied and sometimes vague symptoms is vitally important until there is an affordable and effective screening tool.  Raising funding for research into better and more varied treatment options and into screening strategies to enable early diagnosis is pivotal in saving the lives of women with or at risk of Ovarian Cancer.

This is why I have signed up to walk 11,000 steps a day for the month of March.  If I find 100 friends willing to give just £11 each we between us will have remembered every woman who has died of Ovarian Cancer in the last year and contributed towards reducing that number in the future.  I hope that you will support me and I thank you very much for doing so.