In 2021, the Sista Fitness family suffered a great loss in the passing of a beloved friend and Sista Fitness staff member, Kellie. For those of you who never had the pleasure of knowing Kellie, she was a dear friend to the entire Sista Fitness community, but particularly close to Maggie.
Our beautiful Kellie bravely fought against ovarian cancer, but ultimately was taken from us by the disease last year. Before this, she became a massive advocate for raising awareness about the hard-to-detect disease.
Ride for Research: Kellie’s Legacy.
Following the legacy Kellie left behind, Sista Fitness has will host a spinathon event called Kellie’s Legacy — Sista Fitness’ Ride for Research. Together, we’ll be raising funds for Ovarian Cancer Australia.
This event will take place on Saturday morning 29/10/2022 beginning at 8am and finishing at 11:30 in our Group Fitness room. It will run for two hours — yes that’s right, riding for two hours straight!
Bikes will be available for purchase from via the Sista App for $80 by an individual or a team of up to four people (for example, with a team of four, you could ride 30 minutes each to make up the two hours). We encourage every team or individual to dress up, with prizes going to the best dressed team, and best dressed bike!
Grow and Grind Coffee Van and others will be in attendance to show their support, and of course, give riders much-needed sustenance! Registrations close 26th October, so get in quick before all the bikes sell out.
About Ovarian Cancer
Ovarian cancer is the eighth most common cancer affecting women in Australia. Each year in Australia, around 1400 new cases of ovarian cancer are diagnosed, and the five-year survival rate for ovarian cancer is just 45.7%.
It’s been dubbed the “silent killer” due to “whispering symptoms”. Ovarian cancer cannot be picked up by a PAP smear, and the symptoms are often vague, subtle, extremely generic, or attributed to other things. For example, some of the symptoms are tiredness, bloating, frequent urination, irregular menstruation, back pain, and indigestion. Any number of these could be attributed to any number of possible causes — and ovarian cancer usually isn’t screened for these complaints.
By the time most women have been diagnosed, there is little to offer in the way of hope.
Additionally, treatment for ovarian cancer has not changed significantly since the 1970s (almost 50 years) due to the lack of funding provided for research. Symptom awareness is our best bet in terms of early detection, and this is some Kellie was extremely passionate about — particularly raising funds toward a direct screening test.
In continuing her movement, we encourage you to watch and share Kellie’s video as we fight ovarian cancer, together.
