HERS, LLC Origin Story
Founder Yvette Jives has a unique perspective and calling to the work carried out by HERS, LLC.
Yvette is a nurse, a social worker, and an Ovarian Cancer survivor, who says “My initial ovarian cancer symptoms were urinary frequency, which was diagnosed repeatedly as a Urinary Tract Infection. I had to advocate for myself and schedule an appointment with my GYN provider to exam me for my complaints of unresolved frequency, urgency, and pelvic pressure. I then had two tests to track my CA125 levels (which is a cancer antigen protein) found in most ovarian cancer cells. The rapid increase in CA125 levels between the first and second test was the first indication of Ovarian Cancer”.
Even as a nurse and social worker, Yvette wasn’t fully aware of how limited information and support is for women diagnosed with ovarian cancer until she experienced it first hand. Luckily, Yvette has decades of experience supporting others, especially Women, Black and Brown patients in advocating for their own health and was able to use that experience to help her diagnosis, treatment, and in her continued remission.
Spending over 3 decades creating programs that aim to break down barriers to diagnosis and care for patients experiencing gynecological cancers, or other challenges, in 2017 HERS, LLC went from a dream to a reality so that Yvette could help others navigating our healthcare system or symptom driven diseases.
Symptom-driven diseases are disease whose symptoms mimic other diagnoses.
Ovarian Cancer is one of that HERS, LLC prioritizes, in part because it has no direct diagnostic test or screening technique. It’s also known that Women of color have the lowest percentages of being diagnosed with ovarian cancer but the highest mortality percentages. They are also usually diagnosed in the late stages of 3 and 4 when cancer has migrated to other parts of the body.
Learn more about Ovarian Cancer and the impact it has on People of Color here.
Other symptom-driven diseases can include Cervical and Colon Cancer, COPD, Chronic Heart Failure (CHF), Diabetes, and high blood pressure. Having a symptom-driven disease can make getting diagnosis as well as effective, and timely treatment more difficult.
Yvette and the team behind HERS, LLC believes that community conversations are vital to addressing healthcare inequities and in identifying the real social determinants. HERS, LLC prioritizes that work through our one-on-one engagement with Vulnerable Adults, People of Color and Ovarian Cancer Patients in Western North Carolina and the Healthcare Providers they engage with. This is all done in an effort to break down barriers in access to healthcare and to improve health outcomes for underserved and marginalized individuals of color.
