Wearing a sparkly frock to raise awareness of ovarian cancer, Wellington City councillor Andrea Compton has revealed her own diagnosis is now in remission.<\/p>\n
By Justin Wong for Local Democracy Reporting<\/p>\n
Compton made the personal statement during a Wellington City Council committee meeting on Thursday, wearing a sequin dress for Frocktober, which raises funds for ovarian cancer research.<\/p>\n
\u201cWomen need to advocate for themselves, which is why I\u2019ve done this today,\u201d she told Local Democracy Reporting. \u201cI\u2019ve done this for myself. I\u2019ve done this for other women so that if they\u2019re feeling off, they need to push and don’t end up in an emergency department like I did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Compton was on holiday with her daughter in January when something didn\u2019t feel right, but not like a normal illness. An ovarian cancer diagnosis came in February after a visit to the emergency department, a GP and a specialist. She had surgery in March to remove a \u201chuge\u201d tumour and then six rounds of chemotherapy that concluded in September.<\/p>\n
The diagnosis was just five months after Compton was elected to the Takap\u016b\/Northern General War \u2013 which \u201creally annoyed\u201d her because it got in the way of things she wanted to achieve for her constituents.<\/p>\n
Instead, she worked from home and attended council meetings remotely, even from the chemotherapy bed. There were fears that the cancer was at stage three but it turned out to be stage one. \u201cI really needed a purpose. [The] council has been a purpose, my daughter is a purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n
Each year, 306 women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer of which 30% die within the first year, according to an Ovarian Cancer Foundation report. The report described the disease as the \u201cleast survivable women\u2019s cancer\u201d as treatment options were limited and it was one of the least researched cancers.<\/p>\n
The report also said ovarian cancer rarely announces itself clearly and its symptoms of bloating, fatigue or back pain were easily dismissed as \u201cnormal female issues\u201d.<\/p>\n
At Thursday\u2019s meeting, Compton thanked doctors and nurses, and her friends and family for stepping in for messages, meals, childcare and \u201ccountless\u201d trips to chemotherapy.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo my colleagues, we often sit on different sides of difficult debates, but throughout this journey I\u2019ve been met with kindness, respect and genuine humanity,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are people around this table that I did not know this time last year who checked in on me and treated me with respect \u2013 one of you even accompanied me to my wig fitting.\u201d<\/p>\n
She now looked forward to the \u201csimple things\u201d: her hair growing back, getting back on the netball court, being present with her daughter and discovering what \u201cthe new normal\u201d looks like.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Local Democracy Reporting is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wearing a sparkly frock to raise awareness of ovarian cancer, Wellington City councillor Andrea Compton has revealed her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":631990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[134,111,139,69,135,52],"class_list":["post-631989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-politics","tag-wellington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=631989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}