Team USA gymnast Shannon Miller is feeling thankful.
While speaking to Parade exclusively ahead of September’s Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month, Miller, 48, provided a positive health update.
“I’m doing really great,” the mom of two says while explaining the importance of getting biomarkers for the disease checked regularly. “I always knock on wood, but I’m doing very well. I’m now just over 14 years cancer-free. [I’m] still going for my checkups, still pay attention. I do a lot better with listening to the signs and speaking up if something doesn’t feel right than I did prior to my diagnosis. But it’s an ongoing thing. It is a journey.”
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In January 2011 at age 33, the 1996 Olympian was diagnosed with a rare form of germ ovarian cancer after a large tumor was discovered on one of her ovaries during a routine check-up. With the help of surgery and chemotherapy, Miller was deemed cancer-free in September 2011.
Looking back, the gold medalist says she had symptoms that she dismissed at the time since she had just given birth to her son John Rocco, now 15. She thought they were side effects from the exhaustion of carrying a baby and becoming a new mom, but she wishes she knew then what she knows now.
“Some of the signs that I missed were things like bloating,” Miller, who also shares daughter Sterling Diane, 12, with husband John Falconetti, adds. “I would have my favorite skirt that I would wear at a meeting, and I remember I couldn’t quite zip it up. I thought that was odd, especially because I had had some pretty significant weight loss. I had lost about eight pounds, and in a matter of about a month, which normally, you would think, ‘Whoa, that’s that’s crazy!’ But I had a baby, so I just assumed it was baby weight. I didn’t think of it as necessarily a negative thing. And then there were stomach aches. But again, I kind of thought dehydration and body-after-baby and all those things. So those are some of the things that I did not listen to my body in a way that I should have.”
With 80% of ovarian cancer cases being diagnosed at a late stage, now — with a clean bill of health — Miller hopes to help others with a few tips and tricks of her own.
“I try to write things down, and I encourage others to do the same,” Miller says. “Because we get so busy with everyday life and taking care of everything and everyone else in our lives, that when we have an issue, a lot of times by the next day, we’ve forgotten it. And so I write it down, and if it’s something that persists for more than two weeks, I go talk to my doctor, and I’m OK with that. It means a few more doctors appointments, but I feel like if the cancer comes back, I want to know at the earliest stage possible.”