Ketty Fessahazion has a type of ovarian cancer, but you wouldn’t know it.
In fact, thanks to her treatment through a clinical trial at HonorHealth Research Institute, the 42-year-old Glendale financial expert hardly notices it.
“Thankfully, I’ve had very few symptoms, if any at all,” said Ketty, whose tumor now is merely a chronic, though manageable, condition. “If nobody told me, I wouldn’t know I had this (cancer). My energy level is great. I just live my life normally, and this (cancer) is just a part of it.”
But in the summer of 2013, she suffered from a persistent cough and often found it difficult to breathe. An examination found fluid in her lungs — a lot of it — 2 liters of fluid that resulted from her late stage ovarian cancer; a tumor on her left ovary. That same year, she had a full hysterectomy, but the tumor persisted, and the cancer eventually spread to her lymph nodes.
Ketty received chemotherapy and radiation treatments, but by 2019 the chemo wasn’t helping, and she was told that she had run out of options, a prospect that frightened her.
In 2020, she was referred to the Research Institute and the promise of a clinical trial under the guidance of Erkut Borazanci, M.D., medical director of the Institute’s Cancer Research Division.
Ketty was skeptical when she considered the word “research” and she wondered, “Am I going to be a lab rat?”
“I had all those concerns. But when I walked into the Research Institute, I was immediately greeted with warmth, with empathy, everybody tried to make me feel as comfortable as possible,” she said.
Dr. Borazanci already had two different treatment plans ready: “I loved that because it feet like they cared about me; that they really were planning for me and thinking about the future – how this (treatment) is going to impact me long-term,” Ketty said.
After growing up in Los Angeles and receiving a degree from UC Santa Barbara, she sold insurance for most of a decade before taking a job as a national and international corporate team leader and regional vice president for one of the nation’s larger financial institutions.
But with her cancer under control, and after receiving permission to remain for now on a clinical trial that works for her, Ketty quit her corporate job in February and recently began two different ventures.
One is a business called She is Limitless Coaching.
“I empower women to live their full potential by knowing their core values, changing their limiting beliefs and learning how to set boundaries for themselves. As women, we have so many things we have to juggle; we wear so many hats. And people expect so much from us that sometimes we put ourselves on the backburner,” Ketty explained.
“So, it’s time for us to come back to who we are; be able to be well in ourselves, so that we can continue to help those who we love and surround us. That’s just something that’s been in my heart for a long time. If I can share what I’ve learned though my own journey with people, why not?”
In addition, drawing on her experience in insurance and volunteering, Ketty recently started a non-profit called Sweet Dreams Angels Foundation.
“We provide funding for funeral expenses for low-income families who have lost a child due to an illness. Once you have a chronic illness, insurance doesn’t cover you for life-insurance. These parents already are having to struggle with the financial hardships of hospital bills. ‘How do I pay for groceries, but at the same time take care of this? And yet, my heart is hurting because I just lost my child.’ I want to help those families.”
