Elise Gasbarrino, 35, is a busy woman.\u00a0 As Editor-in-Chief of Style Canada, she has her pulse on all things fashion and lifestyle related.\u00a0 Fashion is her passion, having worked at both Burberry and Oscar de la Renta.\u00a0 She is also\u00a0 a business woman who knows how to build a brand.\u00a0 She has charisma too and a genuine warmth.\u00a0 She is also a cancer survivor.\u00a0 At just 21 years of age, Gasbarrino was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.\u00a0 With very few resources for young women out there, she founded Pink Pearl and is now the Executive Director.\u00a0 Pink Pearl is an organization dedicated to bringing together young women with any type of cancer through a network of peer support and innovative programs. When we heard her story, we wanted to learn more.<\/p>\n
I was 21, going to Laurier for business administration.\u00a0 I was on a co-op term in Ottawa.\u00a0 I had been having pain in my abdomen and gone to a walk-in clinic.\u00a0 The doctors thought it was the flu or something.\u00a0 It was a good thing that I was going home the next weekend and could visit my family doctor.\u00a0 They immediately saw that something was wrong because I was even walking differently.\u00a0 It turns out that my tumour was large and ended up being the size of a basketball.\u00a0 They thought, because \u00a0I was so young and the tumour was a decent size that it probably wasn\u2019t cancerous.<\/p>\n
I remember going through a lot of tests and everything happened very quickly.\u00a0 I actually didn\u2019t know that it was cancer when I went I for the surgery.\u00a0 After, I remember that was the diagnosis coming from the doctor and the day was just like a whirlwind.\u00a0 I went right away to have a picc (peripherally inserted central catheter) line placed in my arm.\u00a0 We had multiple appointments that day.\u00a0 Then, I went home and started treatment two days later.<\/p>\n
I had some time after the surgery but I don\u2019t remember thinking that I was sick.\u00a0 I don\u2019t remember thinking that maybe I have cancer.\u00a0 I\u2019m the type who always deals in facts when they are right in front of me.\u00a0 I try not to think too far ahead.\u00a0 That probably helped me a bit.\u00a0 I\u2019m probably romanticizing it a little in my head, I\u2019m sure that I was concerned, but it has been 14 years now.<\/p>\n
It was three cycles of three weeks, so nine weeks in total.\u00a0 It was pretty intense.\u00a0 The first week (of the cycle) you were there every day.\u00a0 The subsequent two weeks were just once a week.\u00a0 I lost my hair, so that was a physical sign.\u00a0 Other than that, plus the picc in my arm, you really couldn\u2019t tell.\u00a0 I think I\u2019m more emotional when I think back on it then when I was in it.\u00a0 When I was in it, I was trying to do the things that I would normally do.\u00a0 I was trying to go to school. I was trying to go to parties and go out at night because it was summer.\u00a0 I was trying to do as much as that regular stuff as possible and that helped me in a way.<\/p>\n
I remember it being exhausting.\u00a0 Sometimes, I just couldn\u2019t get up or I would walk around the corner to the bathroom and be tired.\u00a0 I pushed myself harder than I should have at times. Overall, I tried to live as normally as I could, probably too normally.\u00a0 At the same time, mentally, that helped me.\u00a0 Ideally, it should be a balance of the two.<\/p>\n
I had wonderful support \u2013 my Mom came to every single treatment.\u00a0 Then, because I would be at school, I had some friends who would drive me down to Juravinski Cancer Centre.\u00a0 Everyone really helped me out and came to appointments and did things.\u00a0 That was massive.\u00a0 That\u2019s why Pink Pearl started.<\/p>\n