A 65-year-old Minnesota woman who watched her best friend die of ovarian cancer in 2017 received the same diagnosis less than a year later, and her eight-year fight highlights why early detection remains so difficult.
Becky Drexler and Connie Dahl were close enough that Dahl stood at Drexler's wedding in 2002. When doctors told Dahl she had stage 4 ovarian cancer in April 2015, at age 51, Drexler stepped in to help. Dahl vowed to stay positive and live fully. She died in September 2017.
Drexler had already begun volunteering with the Minnesota Ovarian Cancer Alliance during Dahl's illness. She retired in 2017. By the following summer, she started noticing symptoms of her own, but she brushed them off.
The early warning signs were easy to explain away. Drexler wrote in an essay sent to Fox News Digital that the symptoms both she and Dahl experienced were maddeningly vague.
"The early symptoms both Connie and I had were vague, like they are for most women. They seem like normal things that we can excuse away, we are aging, we are just stressed, we just need to eat better or lose weight."
Dr. Brian M. Slomovitz, director of gynecologic oncology at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, Florida, confirmed that pattern. Ovarian cancer symptoms mimic everyday complaints, stomach pain, bloating, a change in how clothes fit around the waist.
"The problem is they are sort of non-specific symptoms, things that could occur in everyday life, stomach pains, abdominal bloating, things like that."
Slomovitz, who also serves as deputy director of the Braman Comprehensive Cancer Center, said the symptoms can feel like a bad meal or a stomach bug. That ordinariness is exactly what makes ovarian cancer so dangerous. There is currently no recommended routine screening test for women at average risk, because available tests have not reliably detected the disease early enough to improve outcomes.
The numbers tell the story plainly. Roughly 75 percent of women receive their ovarian cancer diagnosis at stage 3 or stage 4, Slomovitz said. When the disease is caught at stage 1, the cure rate approaches 90 percent. Most women never get that chance.
Drexler described the moment she finally decided to see her doctor in terms that were personal and specific. She said dragonflies, which she associated with Dahl after her friend's death, kept appearing in her garden that early summer.
"I recall one afternoon being on my patio thinking, 'Should I go see the doctor?' when a couple dragonflies in my flower garden just wouldn't leave me alone. I said out loud, 'OK, Connie, I'll go in and talk to the doctor.'"
She went. On her 57th birthday, her doctor called with the CT scan results: masses on both ovaries. The diagnosis came in July 2018, stage 3B high-grade serous ovarian cancer. Fewer than ten months had passed since Dahl's death. Sudden, devastating health crises can strike without warning, but Drexler at least had the advantage of knowing what the disease looked like up close.
Four days after meeting with her oncologist, Drexler had surgery. From September 2018 through January 2019, she underwent six chemotherapy treatments using carboplatin and taxol.
She described those months as difficult but said the support around her made them bearable, family, friends, her care team, and the Minnesota Ovarian Cancer Alliance, where she attended support group meetings and talked with women going through the same ordeal.
"Those months were difficult but also filled with the support, love and laughter of family, friends, care team and MOCA. I knew Connie was part of my team as well, just in a different way."
Drexler said she wished Dahl were still alive so she could talk to someone who truly understood the physical and emotional toll. The support group helped fill part of that gap, but not all of it.
The cancer came back in August 2020. Surgeons removed a new tumor from her pelvic area. She and her oncologist weighed the options, standard chemotherapy, radiation, or monitoring without treatment. Drexler chose targeted radiation, which she completed in January 2021. Doctors again found no evidence of disease.
In January 2021, Drexler began taking Lynparza, a PARP inhibitor, a class of maintenance therapy that was not available for ovarian cancer patients when Dahl was fighting the disease before September 2017. That single fact carries weight. Dahl died without access to a treatment that would help keep her best friend's cancer at bay for five years.
Drexler remained in what doctors call NED, no evidence of disease, from January 2021 through February 2026. Five years of stability. In 2025, she was well enough to present to medical students at the Mayo Clinic, sharing what she had learned as both a patient and an advocate.
But ovarian cancer is persistent. During the winter of 2025, Drexler developed gastric symptoms. A PET scan revealed a tumor around her small intestine, large enough to require surgery. When pathology came back, it confirmed what she feared: a recurrence of her ovarian cancer. A second PET scan showed remaining spots. Health crises that arrive without warning test even the most prepared, and Drexler had been preparing for years.
In May 2026, she started an 18-week treatment cycle combining carboplatin, taxol, and avastin. A mid-treatment PET scan in late July brought encouraging results: the spots were no longer visible, and no new ones had appeared. She expects to complete the cycle by the end of September.
"I had a PET scan halfway through (late July), which indicated the treatment is working. We were happy to learn that the spots were no longer visible and no new spots had appeared."
Drexler also noted that her post-treatment plan may include a recently approved antibody drug conjugate maintenance therapy, another tool that did not exist during Dahl's fight.
Drexler is direct about what has kept her alive.
"I believe I am still here because of the advancements in treatments. Developing a reliable early detection test for ovarian cancer remains one of the most critical research goals."
That gap between treatment progress and detection progress is the core problem. Slomovitz noted that researchers have spent decades studying early detection methods without finding a reliable one. The symptoms remain vague. The screening tools remain inadequate. And the result is that three out of four women learn they have ovarian cancer only after it has already spread.
Drexler continues to volunteer with the Minnesota Ovarian Cancer Alliance, where she serves on the board of directors, participates on committees, and reviews grants for ovarian cancer research. She channels the loss of her best friend into work that might spare other women the same late diagnosis. Women who dedicate their later years to advocacy often do so because they have seen firsthand what happens when awareness falls short.
Her advice is simple and blunt: do not dismiss persistent symptoms as stress, aging, or diet.
"If something isn't feeling right or a seemingly minor issue persists, and you think you might be concerned, see your doctor. Advocate for yourself."
Connie Dahl did not have the treatments that are keeping Becky Drexler alive today. The least the rest of us can do is listen when our bodies are trying to tell us something.