Beyond the Cancer Diagnosis: Interview with Eva-Maria Strömsholm, by Adrian Pogacian

In the latest episode of “Beyond the Cancer Diagnosis”, Adrian Pogacian explores how finding meaning in life can overcome the barriers of cancer, together with Eva-Maria Strömsholm, cancer survivor, nurse, and patient advocate from Finland.

Eva-Maria shares her personal journey through ovarian and thyroid cancer, the challenges of survivorship, and her work in advancing patient advocacy and quality of life for cancer patients across Europe.

Eva-Maria Strömsholm was only 27 years old and an active half-marathon runner when she was diagnosed with a rare ovarian cancer, dysgerminoma. She underwent two major surgeries, initially without chemotherapy, but just six months later the cancer recurred in her kidney. This required an even more extensive surgery and intensive chemotherapy, which left her bedridden and dependent on her family’s care.

The treatments brought lasting side effects, including early menopause, infertility, and chronic fatigue. She also required surgery for a uterine myoma. In 2021, Eva-Maria faced another diagnosis – thyroid cancer – treated with surgery and radiation therapy.

These personal experiences shaped her strong advocacy for cancer survivorship issues, especially the long-term side effects of treatment, the importance of rehabilitation and structured rehabilitation plans, and the need for greater dialogue on cancer-related menopause and infertility.

Beyond her patient perspective, Eva-Maria is a teacher, nurse, and holds a master’s degree in developmental psychology. She currently works as a nurse and is also an active speaker and advocate. She contributes to numerous working groups, boards, and international networks, and frequently speaks at conferences and seminars worldwide.

She is actively engaged with leading organizations, including ESMO, IGCS, WOCC, ESGO ENGAGe, and EURACAN. In Finland, she co-founded Gynecological Cancer Patients and currently serves as its Vice Chair.

Adrian Pogacian, licensed clinical psychologist, with executive education in Psycho-oncology, holding a degree in Global Health Diplomacy from Geneva Graduate Institute and a certificate in Medical Intel Course from NATO School, Oberammergau.

Currently, invited speaker and associate lecturer with focus on Impact of Cancer Diagnosis on Couples and Families, Communication in Cancer Care and managing Fear of Recurrence. His expertise is on Coping with Cancer and Posttraumatic Growth.

Additionally, Founder of INCKA Psycho-oncology Center incka.org, Host of Beyond the Cancer Diagnosis Interview Series at OncoDaily.com, Journalist at CancerWorld.net, co-author of the first Romanian Multimodal Care Guideline in Pediatric Onco-hematology, active contributor to the International Psycho-oncology Society, presently IPOS Fear of Cancer Recurrence (FORwards) Special Interest Group Board Member (2025-2027), IPOS Early Career Professionals in Psycho-Oncology CommitteeFounding Member (2023-2026) and Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC) member.

When finding meaning in life overcomes the barriers of cancer

Adrian Pogacian: Dear Eva-Maria, to begin our interview with, I would like to ask you to share for our audience your cancer journey. Moreover, did you use coping strategies/mechanisms to help you better cope with the disease? If yes, could you name them?

Eva-Maria Strömsholm: I was 27 years old when I got a rare ovarian cancer called Dysgerminoma. I had two big surgeries but no chemotherapy. Half a year later it came back in my kidney and I had a bigger surgery and hard chemo that got me to be a bedpatient and needed help from my family. After this I got many long term side effects and also came into menopause and with that could not have children. I had a big myoma in my uterus and then also a surgery for that. In 2021 I got thyroid cancer and surgery and radiation ionisation treatment.

My cancer diagnosis was a big shock for me, as it is for many others too. I was a healthy athlete, a half marathon runner, and trained a lot. I was in good shape and did not understand that something could be wrong. I was on a normal checkup and I heard about the benign cyst in my ovary. But my doctor told me that the pathology answers were different, that it was a rare form of ovarian cancer.

It was a shock for me but for some reason I just took a “role” to be the strong one and to get as much information as possible just to have something to give to my parents and sister and friends. I think I then needed to have a lot of information to keep me going on. I also liked to talk about my cancer, I talked to my friends a lot and I felt that it helped me also to cope and understand the situation I was in. I also started to write down my thoughts and feelings and that became a book a few years later.

Adrian Pogacian: The induced menopause and, especially, the fact that you never can’t be a mother were, probably, the toughest thoughts to deal with. In this regard, how important was the Share Decision Making process?

Eva-Maria Strömsholm: Yes, menopause and infertility were hard but I have always said that the hardest thing is if the cancer comes back, everything else I can deal with. So even if I got menopause and challenges with that and knowing I cannot get children it was not so bad after all. Of course it was hard but I wanted to live and I was and I am a positive person. I think also when I had a myoma growing and I myself decided in 2015 to “take away everything”, it was easier for me to deal with the infertility then because I could decide it myself.

One surprising thing was that it was almost harder to deal with the fact that I cannot run or compete anymore and I tried two years after chemo to train again but understood that my body is too tired so that I cannot anymore be a runner. That was also hard because I thought “who am I if I am not a runner or athlete anymore and what would I do with my life now”. So I also think that that was the start to being a patient advocate too, I had to fill my life with something new.

Share decision making is important for almost every patient. But there are patients that do not want to be involved and they just want the doctor to take care of everything. But for me it was from the beginning important to discuss with my doctors and get information and also be able to have time to think about my options and then again talk to the doctor and together discuss what is the best for me. I also think that more and more doctors want patients to be involved in their own care.

Adrian Pogacian: Cancer related fatigue and the quality of life are two of the most pressure issues to handle. How do you succeed in overcoming these challenges?

Eva-Maria Strömsholm: I unfortunately got the fatigue from the chemo and it is still an issue for me. Of course I have learned to deal with it but it is hard, it is one of the long term side effects from treatments that is not going to go away and there is no cure for that. You just have to live with it and it is hard. Fatigue impacts the quality of life for many patients and also for me. For example I cannot work 100% due to fatigue, just 50% and I am very tired all the time. Some days I have to sleep in the afternoon, but that does not help. I feel that I am slower and my thoughts are slower than before.

Cancer patients need to have a good quality of life also after treatments and I think that long term side effects from treatments are hard and patients feel that they do not get help for that. They get good care and treatments but after you are treated then everything should be fine and sometimes it feels that doctors are not so interested in helping the patients cope with the long term side effects. I think here we can do much better.

Adrian Pogacian: Talking from another perspective, you cofounded Gynecological Cancerpatients in Finland. Would you be able to speak about the mission, vision and the values of this organization?

Eva-Maria Strömsholm: Gynecological Cancerpatients in Finland is a national patient association which works as an advocacy organization for gynecological cancer patients and their families.

The aim of the association is to advance gynecological cancer patients’ physical, psychological and social quality of life and improve rehabilitation. We provide reliable information about gynecological cancers and their prevention, early diagnosis as well as different treatments. We publish reliable materials and give advice/counselling and peer support to gynecological cancer patients and their families.

I had been thinking about patient associations for a couple of years and was concerned that we in Finland did not have an own association for gynecological cancer patients and they were left alone. We were two patients that together with a gynecologic oncologist cofounded this important association. Now we are known all around Finland, not just patients know us but we have good cooperation with doctors and hospitals and also politicians.

Adrian Pogacian: Hence, cancer is not a disease that can be handled alone. It is also a community issue. From your experience with and for the oncological patients, how can the lives of these cancer communities be improved?

Eva-Maria Strömsholm: Yes, cancer is a disease that is hard to cope with alone and you usually need family and friends to help and support you. They are important but sometimes you could need help from cancer organisations or peer support and talk to others who have also gone through a cancer diagnosis just to get the support you need. You also need help from the healthcare professionals and all help you can get is good. I am a person who loves to talk about my experiences and that has helped me from the beginning. I have been open about what I have gone through and that has also helped people around me, they have never needed to feel afraid to ask questions about how I feel.

We can better help cancer patients, together, I mean organisations, doctors, patient advocates, politicians, healthcare professionals and others if we just listen to the patients and their caregivers’ needs and thoughts and what they want. No one knows what a cancer patient needs or feels if you do not ask them.

Adrian Pogacian: It is said that family support is half of the recovery. What recommendations do you have for caregivers?

Eva-Maria Strömsholm: The caregivers are important, without them it is hard to cope alone. I needed help from my family and they supported me. But here it is also important to know that the caregivers also need to cope with the information that their loved one has a dangerous disease. Caregivers also need support and peer support and we cannot forget that also small children are affected emotionally if their mother or father have cancer, they also need support and help.

I would say that the caregivers and also friends should be as normal as possible with the cancer patient but ask them what do they want and what do they feel and do they want to talk about the cancer or not. If you in the family knows about how the patient wants to have it then it is probably also easier.

But I also want to say to the caregivers that if you feel alone and your emotions are all over the place, you can also look for help and support. Because, if you are tired and feeling down, you can probably not help or have the strength to help your loved one, so take care of yourself.

Adrian Pogacian: How important is advocacy work in cancer care trajectory?

Eva-Maria Strömsholm: I think advocacy work is really important and that this is going to be more and more important in the future. We need strong and good organisations and associations to help the patients and caregivers but also organisations that speak up for all cancer patients and discuss difficult issues such as clinical trials, how to get medicine to each country, cooperation between countries so that cancer patients can get treatment in another country and so on. Advocacy work is important and large and together with other organisations we can speak up for cancer patients and their caregivers.

Everything between prevention and diagnosis to treatment, survivorship, and end-of-life care are topics that are important to talk about. We need good prevention and we can prevent some cancers and every country has to work together to try to help the patients.

We need to advocate for improving access to care and new medicines but patients also need to get their diagnosis in time. Every country should have good access to cancer screening and early detection. Patient empowerment is important and patient advocates have an important role when talking to politicians and policymakers.
We also need good cooperation between organisations, hospitals, healthcare professionals, patient advocates and clinicians.

Read Other Episodes of Beyond the Cancer Diagnosis on OncoDaily.