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living with ovarian cancer through faith, family and advocacy: 'life is precious'
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gertrude spatafora went for a routine colonoscopy for crohn's disease. a few weeks later, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
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when gertrude spatafora got a routine colonoscopy for her crohn’s disease in december of 2023, she expected that if the doctor came back with bad news, it would be related to her long-time chronic condition. that wasn’t the case, though.
“he said everything was fine with the crohn’s. he thought it was in remission,” said the toronto woman. “but he saw a bit of something in the abdominal area that was kind of suspicious, a little bit of liquid.”
her doctor contacted her family physician, and she was quickly seen by a specialist, who performed blood tests and a biopsy. spatafora, as it turned out, had ovarian cancer.
“i didn’t have any symptoms,” she said, later continuing, “within, i guess, two weeks of that [her diagnosis] i was in sunnybrook.”
her diagnosis was a “matter of chance.”
she started on three sessions of chemotherapy, followed by a complete hysterectomy, and then another round of six chemotherapy sessions. she learned shortly after that the cancer had spread to her liver, and they added radiation to her treatment plan.
“i was angry,” spatafora said of learning she had cancer. “i couldn’t believe it. i thought i’ve been healthy all my life, and all of a sudden i get this, like, where did it come from?”
leaning into faith and family after a cancer diagnosis
after spatafora was able to come to terms with her diagnosis, she reverted from anger back to one of her main life mottos: “there’s a reason for everything.” her faith taught her that god doesn’t make people go through hard times without having a good reason for it.
while she was going through cancer treatment, she leaned heavily on her faith to help her stay true to who she is and what she believes about herself and the world.
“i go to mass every morning,” she said.
spatafora’s family has also been a pillar of light during her cancer journey. both she and her husband are retired teachers now, and their two sons, matthew and mark, have families of their own with three grandchildren.
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“my husband’s been really supportive, and the boys have been supportive, and family and friends and the people at the church,” she said, noting that with the support around her and her faith, getting through the cancer diagnosis has been that much easier.
the financial impact of cancer treatment
while chemotherapy, radiation and other cancer treatments are notoriously known for making people feel incredibly ill, spatafora has been “really fortunate.”
“i didn’t feel sick,” she said. “i would go for the chemotherapy and then come home and, you know, do whatever i have to do, clean, do clothes, make dinner, eat.”
she has been put on a newer drug as well, elahere, which is a type of antibody-drug conjugate that treats certain types of ovarian cancer. the drug, which has yet to be publicly reimbursed, offers a different therapy for people like spatafora.
the medication costs thousands of dollars each month, but because of the lifestyle she and her husband led throughout their teaching careers, they have the resources.
“our main trips were hockey rinks and baseball diamonds, so we didn’t spend on any extravagant trips at all,” she said.
“we can afford it for a certain length of time but if it happens that i need for years to come, god willing, i continue living but i still need it, then of course i have to keep paying for it, and you know when you see that amount coming out of the bank and you see it on your slip you think, ‘oh, this is not exactly like $100 or $200. it’s thousands a shot, every three weeks.”
the medication is working well for spatafora at the moment, so she and her husband have to take the financial shock “in stride.”
she’s been told by people in her life to start a gofundme page to cover the costs, but that opens a lot of doors she would rather keep closed because “if i have to deal with something, i like to deal with it on my own.”
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becoming an advocate for cancer patients
for spatafora, dealing with the financial burden of her medication is a tough aspect of having ovarian cancer, but knowing that she has the resources to pay for medications that help while others don’t has turned her into an advocate.
“i was looking at the younger people, like the younger women in sunnybrook that could be in the same situation as i am,” she said. “they’ve got families that they’re still supporting; they could have jobs.”
she’s currently working with her family, friends and other advocates to have the medication approved for reimbursement through a petition.
the work she does isn’t alone, either, as her family is by her side.
“mark is the one that is here that will be able to, you know, deal with the petition and the writing and meeting up with people along with myself,” she said. “my biggest concern is these people that really need it as well, these women.”
her main goal is to help make it clear that helping the health of canadians should be a top priority for government entities.
“when they’re spending $81 million per game for the fifa games, they could put a little aside for the health of the people,” she said. “it’s actually frustrating, and it’s very mind-boggling.”
the petition that spatafora has made has 1,200 signatures from people across the country, but her frustration surrounding her ovarian cancer isn’t about her at all—it’s about the government moving far too slowly on making a drug that she can afford available to those who can’t.
“it’s disheartening,” she said. “we got all those signatures … we get a note back saying, ‘well, you know, more or less, too bad. we’ll take care of it.’ … i just don’t see that being fair.”
using her time for others
spatafora has always been the type to care for others, with a mindset that helping people is mandatory ever since she was a little girl.
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“i can’t walk past somebody on the street who’s looking for some money, whether he uses it for alcohol or a hot dog, whatever, that’s his choice. my choice is to give it to him and to use it for whatever he wants,” she said.
this drive has allowed her to take her situation and turn it into something good, something that she can do to potentially change the lives of others who also get diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
“no one knows how long you live, no matter what you have,” she said. “it can be today, tomorrow, you know. you can step off the sidewalk, and somebody drives into you. so, i feel life is precious, and you do with it what you can and as much as you can.”
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