Samantha Tavantzis: Profile of an Ovarian Cancer Survivor

For most teenagers, senior year of high school is a time of reminiscence, celebration, and anticipation of the future. For Samantha Tavantzis, it meant hospital visits, missing school, and the possibility that the future might never arrive.

Tavantzis became a survivor after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer at the age of 18, and her story lead her to become a part of QVC’s Super Saturday campaign to help raise awareness about the disease.

Now 20 years old, Tavantzis is a Ronkonkoma native and graduate of Sachem High School East. She was involved with soccer and lacrosse in high school, and served as Student Government treasurer. Despite her active lifestyle, she began to feel ill, noting that simple tasks such as climbing the stairs were difficult.

Knowing something wasn’t right, she began to visit doctors, many of whom diagnosed her with minor ailments such as IBS or a pulled muscle. Even when one doctor finally detected the mass in her stomach, no one had any idea how dangerous it would turn out to be.

“They were going into surgery to remove [the mass], but they had told me it was going to be a cyst, not cancer,” she said. During the five-hour surgery necessary to remove the basketball-sized tumor, doctors sent a piece of the mass to pathology for testing. To everyone’s disbelief, the results indicated that the “benign cyst” was actually a Grade 2 tumor, and staging surgery revealed she had Stage 1a ovarian cancer.

“Once they got the news in the OR, they changed the whole surgery,” Tavantzis’s mother Colleen remembered, “they biopsied her abdomen and did a salpingo-oophorectomy, removing one ovary, one fallopian tube, the omentum, and even her appendix.”

Tavantzis credits her surgeon, Dr. Kent Chan of Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, for saving her life.

After extensive deliberation, doctors decided against chemotherapy and opted instead for surveillance of her condition. These appointments, which she still attends monthly, involve close monitoring to head off suspicious growth. She was homeschooled for the second half of her senior year, but was still able to attend her senior trip, prom, and graduation. However, monthly surveillance isn’t the only lingering effect that she has had to deal with.

“Most people going into college don’t need to think about their own mortality,” her mother noted. “Unfortunately, at such a young age, Samantha did.”

Two years later, she is fully recovered and reports that her testing shows no indication of a relapse. After hearing about QVC’s Super Saturday, an annual event benefitting the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund (OCRF), she wrote the network a letter sharing her experience. QVC recognized her unique story (ovarian cancer is rare in young people), and invited her to become a part of their 2011 campaign.

Tavantzis appeared live on QVC, and was introduced by ovarian cancer activist Kim Kardashian in an advertisement highlighting the importance of early detection. She also attended the Super Saturday sale in the Hamptons, where she shopped among celebrities such as Kelly Ripa, Emma Roberts, and Rachael Zoe to raise money for the OCRF.

There is no early detection test for ovarian cancer, and Tavantzis hopes that her involvement in QVC’s campaign will help others to recognize their symptoms before it’s too late.

“If it’s caught at Stage 1, a person has a 90% chance of survival,” she noted, “but when it gets to Stage 2, they have only a 40% chance.”

Tavantzis is pursuing a degree in physical education, and plans to become a physical therapist. She is currently attending and playing soccer at C.W. Post on Long Island, and has high hopes for the future.

“I had to mature at an earlier age, which was rough, but now I know not to worry about the small stuff,” she advised. “Life is short, so enjoy it.”

Have an idea for a profile or another story idea? Email Sachem Patch editor Chris Vaccaro at Chris@Patch.com or Patch contributor Erin Rafferty at Erin.R.Rafferty@gmail.com.