How a Graduate Marketing Class Saved My Life

Each year, approximately 20,000 American women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer and about 15,000 women die of the disease. In 2008, it is estimated that 21,650 women in the United States will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer and 15,520 women will die from the disease. ~Ovarian Cancer National Alliance

Last March I was taking a graduate course in Marketing.  On the first evening of class the professor was doing his lecture.  An hour into the lecture he was talking about companies that utilize marketing by doing goodwill.   He made my head spin by using an example of a company that uses Breast Cancer Awareness by marketing pink products.   It sparked a great debate on the first night of class.

It wasn’t that I was so against a company using pink and breast cancer to raise money for breast cancer research.  Some would say that it’s been way over abused and wonder where the money really goes, but that wasn’t even my point.   It’s that ever October there is tons of pink everywhere, tons of awareness to Breast Cancer and I can’t help feeling that my disease gets ignored.

In my opinion last October was ridiculous. Campbell’s soup has pink labels and it’s true that their sales were increased. Green Giant slapped pink ribbons on their peas and corn. Tic-Tacs were pink and so were M&Ms. You know how much I love M&Ms. Everywhere I went I saw pink.

It made me wonder how cool it would be to walk into a supermarket or department store in September and see TEAL.

So, I was going to make my marketing project for my graduate marketing class all about partnering with a company and promoting a teal product and ovarian cancer. Something completely different happened though. I started doing some research to see if any other company had done anything like it and I came across the symptoms of ovarian cancer on the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance.

Having had ovarian cancer two times before you would think that I’d be pretty damn familiar with the symptoms but sometimes it takes black and white print to slap you in the face. When I saw these classic symptoms:

• Bloating
• Pelvic Pressure or Pain
• Difficulty eating of feeling full quickly
• Urinary symptoms (frequency or urgency)

It had turned out that in July 2007 a concensus had been made that these were the classic symptoms of ovarian cancer.  If these symptoms persist longer than a few weeks then you could have ovarian cancer.  Well, I had those symptoms for about six weeks.

Who knows how much longer I would have ignored those symptoms had that debate about PINK VS. TEAL hadn’t taken place in Marketing that evening.  Had that debate not sparked my anger so much to want to do an entire project…one that actually turned me to my doctor to get the help I needed much sooner than I had in the past.

I still feel very strongly about teal getting some of the equal billing that pink gets each October.  I hope I live to see that day.  I’d eat teal M&Ms, teal Tic-Tacs and Campbell’s soup with Teal labels.  Teal is a pretty color.  Let’s honor it!!  Let’s feel the teal!  Let’s spread the word about Ovarian Cancer…that’s what’s most important.

By the way, I thanked my professor for sparking that debate and told him that he probably saved my life by pushing me in the direction of that project.  Everyday I fight this fight and hope that I’ll see complete recovery despite what the medical profession tells me.  Remember, I’m here to kick cancer’s ass!