In the summer of 2009, Caroline Mancini began experiencing some health issues.

She began getting easily fatigued, having indigestion and bad bloating and feeling full quickly. Her menstrual cycle became erratic and her stomach became hard and distended.

Mancini, who has lived in Redmond by Ames Lake for nine years, was not sure what was wrong and assumed at 48, that she was going through menopause. But the symptoms persisted and became worse.

“None of it went away,” said Mancini, who is now 52.

Despite the ongoing symptoms, she pushed forward with her life, looking after her family and others and staying active in her children’s schools. Mancini said she didn’t think she was experiencing anything serious and did not want to go to the doctor. But in May 2010, while training for an upcoming Susan G. Komen 3-Day walk, she received a wake-up call. At that point, her stomach had become so hard and swollen that she couldn’t bend down to tie her shoe. In addition, as a regular walker and hiker, she was becoming breathless very easily from just walking.

When Mancini finally made it in to see her doctor, she was referred to a couple of specialists. After looking at her symptoms, doctors thought it could be anything from a gluten allergy to diabetes to irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

But after a month’s worth of negative test results, they still didn’t know what was wrong. It wasn’t until one of her doctors spoke with an oncologist and Mancini went in for a biopsy and additional tests that they realized it was ovarian cancer.

She was diagnosed in July 2010 and after she went through treatments and surgery, it was determined that she had stage 3C ovarian cancer. Since her diagnosis, Mancini has been going through chemotherapy almost non-stop, with very few breaks.

“The problem with ovarian cancer if it’s caught so late, it can recur,” she said, adding that she has had two recurrences of the cancer since her diagnosis.

After her diagnosis, Mancini and her daughter began talking about how they could educate women about ovarian cancer so they are aware of the symptoms. Those symptoms include the ones Mancini experienced as well as pelvic or abdominal pain, urinary symptoms (urgency or frequency), abnormal vaginal bleeding and bowel changes.

“Because I didn’t know,” Mancini said about the symptoms, “it is absolutely my mission to spread awareness…My body was telling me for months but I wasn’t listening because I didn’t know what I was listening for.”

To fulfill her mission, Mancini and her daughter Bella Mancini organized a 5K walk on the Sammamish Plateau in 2012. Because the event has outgrown the plateau, this year’s Teal and Toe Walk (teal is the color for ovarian cancer awareness) will be held on Sept. 28 at Marymoor Park at 6046 W. Lake Sammamish Pkwy N.E. in unincorporated King County near Redmond. Registration opens at 12:30 p.m. and the walk begins at 2 p.m.

While the walk is a fundraiser for the Ovarian and Breast Cancer Alliance (OBCA) in Seattle, Caroline said spreading knowledge is more important to her.

Bella said she became involved because she would do anything to support her mother. For the previous two events, the 18-year-old, who begins at Western Washington University later this month, dealt with registering walkers and helped run the event website and social media sites. But this year, with her first year of college just weeks away, Bella said she is not as involved and they are receiving help from the OBCA.

She added that since the walk event began, her mother has been contacted by women who have come across event T-shirts, which list the symptoms for ovarian cancers. As a result, Bella said these women realized that they were experiencing those symptoms and went to see their doctors.

“She’s saving people’s lives,” Bella said about her mother.

Caroline said she is just doing her part to spread awareness about ovarian cancer.

“I’m doing what I can to make sure it is out there,” she said.

For more information, visit www.tealandtoewalk.kintera.org.