Caring for women living with ovarian cancer: recommendations for advanced practice nurses.

This article summarizes advice for advanced practice nurses (APNs) that grew out of research with women living with premenopausal ovarian cancer. We claim that the process of diagnosis and being told, battle metaphors, treatment expectations, the patient's sense of normalcy, her sense of being heard, her ability to make sense of her new world, her inability to have children, issues of sexuality, and the irrelevance of most support groups are important considerations in the treatment of such women. The APN's major role in caring for these women is understanding the experience as it informs the APN's practice and serving as advocates for the women.

In your skin you are different: women living with ovarian cancer during childbearing years.

The purpose of this study was to understand what it is like to live with ovarian cancer during childbearing years. The primary researcher (PR) conducted three to four in-depth interviews, lasting 60 to 90 minutes each, with five women living with ovarian cancer for 1 to 10 years. Van Manen's method of reflection and writing guided the inquiry. The process of existential investigation expanded the inquiry. Trustworthiness was assured through member checking, reflective journaling, coinvestigators checking the logic of the PR's analysis, and the achievement of consensus through dialogue. Analysis of the data revealed the themes of serendipitous diagnosis, managing treatment, horrible hair experience, hysterectomy violating one's sense of being, unfairness of menopause, body changes, intimate dreaming, being with others, being normal/different, being vigilant, being heard, and trying to make sense of it. The stories revealed provide us with a window into the experience of women with ovarian cancer.