MOMENT BY MOMENT

"I'm always thinking about the meaning of cancer in my life," reflects 56-year-old ovarian cancer survivor Jan Guthrie. "I had to discover how I truly wanted to live my life and what I am called to do. I see now that the diagno­sis was a wakeup call." 

That wakeup call keeps ringing, jolting her awake about every 15 months. The small, soft-spoken Conway, Arkansas, businesswoman has had nine recurrences of the ovarian cancer with which she was first diagnosed nearly 17 years ago. She has endured 11 major abdominal surgeries since then. 

The first alarm sounded one night in 1983, when the then 39-year-old university administrator, minister's wife and mother of two was rushed to the hospital with what doctors thought was a rup­tured ovarian cyst. It turned out to be a rare form of ovarian cancer, which had exploded in her abdomen. Following the emergency surgery, an oncologist prescribed a course of radiation therapy. 

Jan rejected his advice. She had researched her condition at a medical li­brary, and in her opinion nothing in the literature showed that radiation offered any improvement in survival over surgery alone. Since radiation had side effects and potential long-term risks, she saw no point. But her doctor dismissed her concerns.

His arrogant and paternalistic attitude deeply offended Jan, and eventually led her to found a health information service that would be at the forefront of medical self-help outlets. Today her company, The Health Resource, provides its customers with the latest research into their condition, delineating the mainstream, alternative and experimental treatment options, and providing a list of the top specialists. Her mission in life, in other words, is to empower others in making their own health choices--as she herself did. 

After she rejected the oncologist's recommended treatment plan, Jan found a surgeon in Houston with expertise in her particular cancer, who agreed to review the medical literature with her. Together, they reached a decision to watch and wait, then perform another surgery in six months to take another look. Jan remained disease free for three years, when another tumor developed and ruptured. This time, chemotherapy was urgently recommended. But in Jan's forays to the medical libraries, she'd found cases of women who had survived for many years just by having the tu­mors surgically removed each time they appeared. That has never been the protocol for her type of cancer, and it still isn't. Even so, her doctors eventually agreed to proceed tumor by tumor.