Not these ovaries! Young woman helps others fighting ovarian cancer

Houston - Emily Campbell says - not these ovaries! Never again does she plan to have to undergo cancer treatment, after it rattled the newlywed. She's certainly cherishing her second chance at life while growing used to the idea that her future looks different than she had pictured. She and her husband started a non-profit, to hopefully paint a brighter future for anyone battling the rare disease.

"I was in the prime of my life - I was in my early 30s, I had just recently been married to my wonderful, amazing husband Chris, and we had moved to Miami and bought a home together. We were really looking forward to the future of building a family together," says Emily. Those last plans quickly changed when she was diagnosed with a rare type of cancer called borderline ovarian cancer or BOT. It took weeks for her to get the right diagnosis. The symptoms mimic many problems. That's why Emily encourages women to be an advocate for their health and keep asking for answers when things just don't add up. "Bloating, feel a little bit of distension in the abdomen, feeling really full quickly after you eat, having to urinate, constipation, any number of symptoms that we've all felt before at some point," says Emily.              

Emily says she underwent a total hysterectomy to make sure all the cancer was out of her body. It was hard to let go of her dream of having children, but she works hard to think positively. "

ENCOURAGEMENT: Baytown worship pastor Ke'Erron encourages others while battling medical problems

Obviously, you have to accept what's happening, you have to feel those emotions, but I knew there was nothing at that point that I could do to go back in time. I could ask a thousand million questions, but the only thing I could do that I could control is to continue to move forward with the best information that I had at the time and just make that best decision," says Emily.

She and her husband Chris founded the non-profit "Not These Ovaries" to provide a resource for younger women. The typical age for ovarian cancer is 65, yet 1 in 10 women diagnosed with ovarian cancer is under 45. They are often affected by two rare, less understood types of cancer: BOT, like what Emily had, and low-grade serious. There is very little research and funding into those two types. 

MORE FROM MELISSA: 5-year-old battles rare kidney disease | Lunch For The Soul

"The survival rate for BOT is luckily really high if you catch it early, and you're able to remove all of it. Unfortunately, the recurrence rate is also very high," explains Emily. Sadly, the average survival rate for low-grade serous ovarian cancer is 9 years.

Emily says there's not an FDA-approved medicine to treat these forms of ovarian cancer, so she and her husband are doing everything in their power to change that, raising almost two million dollars, to help the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute do even more research to find a cure.