Cancer. That stigma is what scared me the most, when I was first diagnosed with serous cytoadencarcinoma, grade 3, fourth stage ovarian cancer, on May 11, 2004. Now, more women are becoming aware of the signs and symptoms, proving that knowledge is power.

Symptoms such as abdominal pain, bloating, low back pain, constipation, nausea, loss of appetite and lethargy are among the most common signs.

Women should not wait, as some doctors have said, until they have those symptoms 12 times in one month before going to a doctor. I never had the symptoms that many times in a month, even six months prior to my diagnosis. If women take anything from reading this, please let it be that.

On the positive side, there have been many breakthroughs in cancer treatment, and more are on the way.

Chemotherapy drugs such as Gemcitabine (Gemzar), which is what I'm taking, don't cause hair loss, like Taxol and the others. In fact, this is the first summer that I've not had to wear a wig since 2003.

Then there is another drug called Epothilone, which has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for breast cancer and is in a phase 3 clinical trial for advanced ovarian cancer by the drug company Novartis. Hopefully it will be approved in the next couple of years.

Because of these treatments and others on the way, ovarian cancer is no longer the automatic death sentence it once was, but a chronic disease. Women are living longer than ever before. So there is indeed hope for a better tomorrow.

Tammy Jeffries of Corvallis is in her fourth year of surviving ovarian cancer.