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Hi there, Just wanted to let you all know about an exciting event we have coming up on October 23 & 24.  Our first ever National 'Virtual' Symposium!  At this symposium you will hear from Canada's top researchers, health care professionals and other experts about all aspects of ovarian cancer treatment, wellness and survivorship.  PLUS, you will have the opportunity to connect with other women living with ovarian cancer from across the country - and we have a few surprises and fun activities planned too!  Click here to register for FREE

http://noca.convio.net/site/Calendar?id=100983&view=Detail&s_locale=en_CA&_ga=2.211176278.2142344061.1601311923-13863842.1518021171

One of our sessions will be an 'Ask the Expert' panel session with gyne oncologists from across the country.  If you have any questions you would like to ask, you can email them to me at sgosselin@ovariancanada.org!

Hope to 'see' you there in October!!

@StephOCC  I'm so excited that OCC is making this available to us.  I've registered, have a placeholder in my calendar and so looking forward to hearing from all of the experts....and knowing all of you, having some fun while we do it.   

We are working on it!  lol.  It is definitely challenging, but we are super excited too!  AND, so great to be able to have access to experts from across the country.  All you need is internet and a device.  Look forward to 'seeing' you there!!

Hi, and I registered today and have put this important Friday evening/Saturday into my calendar.  Great that the registration step asked if you wanted to "ask an expert", so I plugged in my question right when registering. And then made a donation, too.  Grateful to soon attend something I'm sure will be informative and engaging, as one can be on a screen :)  I know many of us have "zoom fatigue" or "webex fatigue" but this should be quite worth it!

Attached is a pdf of the agenda, chock full of great activities, information and discussion sessions, and opportunities for our community to connect and network. For most up-to-date information as it comes available,  please visit ovariancanada.org/symposium or contact Stephanie Gosselin, Regional Director, Ovarian

Two tips if you're attending:
1. An expert panel of gynecologic oncologists from Ontario, British Columbia and Saskatchewan will be taking your questions at our National Symposium. If you'd like to ask them any questions please send them in advance to sgosselin@ovariancancer.org to be featured in the session.

2. As soon as you have access to the portal (you'll get one email that gives you capability to log in and has your user ID and password at the bottom) go in and cruise around.  I'm ok with technology but no genius and found it a wee bit overwhelming at first. Once I played around with it a bit I got more comfortable with the functionality. 

3. The font used for the password is bit strange and my interpretation of what at least one letter or number was off and I couldn't get in.  Solved that by doing a copy from the email and paste into the password request.  Just sayin' in case you have the same issue. 

I just sent an e-mail, To the Pheedloop? tech support, @"Fearless - Vol Mod", because I filled in my little story and added a photo the other day, on the Symposium site, but it vanished.  I logged out and back in, and the page thinks I'm someone called ATTYN5SU something...but before, it knew I was Elspeth (Elsie). When technology doesn't work, I get so tense, and I miss obvious things.  I hope those techy people are good!

@Elsie13 I wish I could help but I am at a loss when it comes to anything more the simple.  Hopefully their tech support can help you.  

Hi All, 
I logged in to the Symposium last night. Lovely to hear Stephanie's opening comments but then I immediately got distracted at home.  Ha ha, this old body just doesn't bend like it used to so missing the Yoga wasn't a big loss for me, but hope everyone else that engaged in that session enjoyed it.  I am so disappointed to have missed the Virtual Networking though. Would love to hear how it went for others in our community...did you engage with old pals?  Did you meet new ones? What did you learn that was new, or encouraging, or hopeful? 

@Elsie13 hope you got the help you needed for your technology challenge and able to experience the Symposium.  

I am definitely planning to join one of the  virtual groups today  along with being excited about many of today's topics.  Right now, for me, it two hours to Saturday's  kick-off and it can't go fast enough for me today! 

I very much enjoyed the Symposium, my favourite lectures were the first one on Advancing New Treatments and the last one, Ask an Expert.  it is so wonderful and reassuring to hear that there are new trials and new research projects underway as we speak and more to come in the spring.  The Longitudinal Profiling is particularly exciting. Great news  learning of the approval of the Parp Inhibitor niraparib and that it will  be available to both BRCA +ve and -ve.   

What an information packed day and half !  I got so much out of the sessions I attended; now to go over my notes and capture the highlights.  My all time favorite was Mental and Emotional Health. Wow, it hit so many hot spots for me.

And I didn't realize OCC had a Patient Partners in Research platform.  It mirrors one at AstraZeneca that I participate in and if anyone is interested in a role like that I can tell you it's been extremely rewarding for me.  

FYI, to anyone else who was there and didn't download the presentations. The portal is still active. I just went in and everything is still up and available. The presentations are posted for each session down at the bottom of the screen.  And I understand, it's been recorded and will be posted in a few weeks once the editing is complete. That's always helpful. I know I often look at my notes and think...was that what they said?

Sorry to say I missed all of the virtual networking.  The past couple of weeks have been very draining emotionally and so I used that time in between sessions to recharge a bit. Would love to know how those went if any of you networked at all. 

Congratulations to all at OCC involved in the organizing and delivery.  You met and mostly exceeded my expectations. Thank you all @CaileyOCC @StephOCC @TracyOCC, Alicia, Jesse and anyone I've missed.  

Now to put into practice something that resonated with me from the Mental and Emotional Health session. Time for a break...clear my head, take some much needed rest, and recharge my body and my mind.  So for the next few days I'm going to pretend I've never heard of cancer...and just make the next few days all about ME and the things that make me happy.  I think a hear a mani-pedi calling...perhaps a home facial...lots of good books calling to me....and maybe I'll finally master making pie crust! 

So this morning, just tying up a  few loose ends on OVdialogue and I'll  "see" you all at our live chat on Thursday.  

Glad I was able to attend the symposium. I didn't catch each session but watched most of them and glad I did. OCC did a wonderful job putting the weekend together and I'm hoping this will be the first of many such events. Thanks to everyone involved from speakers to organizers. Job Well Done! Great Information!