Shauna's Story

The Shaunauqua Foundation honors Shauna Thayn Watts, who passed away from Ovarian cancer in 2018. The idea began when she was still alive, and her husband Merrill leaned into her love of garden flamingos. He painted the flamingos teal—the token color of ovarian cancer awareness—and sold them to donate the proceeds to ovarian cancer detection. Today, the foundation continues as a testament to Shauna’s amazing life and desire to leave the world a much better place.

Shauna was an extraordinary human who breathed life into anything she encountered. Her garden was one of her favorite places to bring to life. She was always threatening with a wink, to take a quick side run to a nursery while her family was on vacation. Beyond her garden, she breathed life into old homes, food creations, and most of all people. Her relationships with family and friends were the top of her life devotions. She always had a question ready to help her connect with anyone she spoke with, resulting in deep, wisdom-filled relationships with the widest array of people.

Ovarian cancer took Shauna by surprise when she was diagnosed at 55. At this time, she was in the midst of loving her growing garden of grandkids while also trying to figure out how to get closer to retirement within the logistics company she owned and ran. With the diagnosis, she chose surgery and chemo to fight her way out of cancer. She had some months of blissful remission the following year, while she and Merrill worked hard to enjoy her bucket list of life she wanted to live. They visited Hawaii, the Grand Canyon, Sedona, took their family zip lining, and enjoyed their daughters and new grand babies.

Ovarian cancer can be called the silent killer. Many women have it for years before the side effects warrant testing. Many of the side effects are confused with common ailments. Most women don’t know they have it until it has grown to stage 3 or 4.

By the time Shauna had found out about her ovarian cancer, it had spread to stage 3, and was very aggressive. She had wonderful doctors who bought her an extra 2 years of life through surgery and chemo, but had it been detected earlier, it could have been so much easier to get out of her body.

The Shaunaqua Foundation’s goal is to raise money for researching potential screening tests to aid with earlier detection. According to the World Ovarian Cancer Coalition, “Ovarian cancer is the most lethal of the female cancers for which there is no reliable screening test….While every woman is at risk, ovarian cancer is overlooked and underfunded.”

We are here to change that and would love your support in helping.