From diagnosis to a movement.

I'm Lisa Milligan. I founded Golfing for the Gals in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and today I lead NC4UC, the nonprofit we built to take this work further. Everything we raise goes to uterine cancer research, awareness, and education at UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.

In the spring of 2017, I was diagnosed with stage 2 endometrial cancer.

I didn't get there overnight. For a long time before that diagnosis, I had symptoms I knew weren't right. Bleeding that shouldn't have been happening. Pain I kept working around. A body that was telling me something was wrong.

And I ignored it.

I told myself I was too busy to see a doctor. I told myself it would pass. I told myself it was probably nothing, and I had a hundred other excuses ready any time the thought crept in. I think a lot of women will recognize themselves in that. We are very good at putting ourselves last.

By the time I sat down with Dr. Paola Gehrig at UNC, the unknown I had been avoiding was suddenly very real.

My treatment was a total hysterectomy, a bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy, pelvic radiation, and brachytherapy. Recovery gave me time to do something I hadn't done before: actually read about this disease.

What I found made me angry. Endometrial cancer is the most common gynecologic cancer in this country. It also gets the least research funding of any of them. Women like me are walking around with symptoms they're brushing off, and the science that could help them isn't getting the dollars it needs.

I decided I was going to do something about that.

"When I was young, my dream was to become a professional golfer. A fundraiser built around the game I love made perfect sense."

Golfing for the Gals launched in 2019. Our first tournament was scheduled for 2020, which, as everyone reading this remembers, did not go as planned for anyone. We held it anyway, safely, and we've come back bigger every year since. This past September was our fifth tournament, and we've now donated over $62,000 to UNC Lineberger.

It's a tight-knit event, 40 to 60 golfers, and one of my favorite changes over the years has been the survivors showing up to play alongside us. Every year there are more of them, which is exactly the point.

The tournament has given me far more than I ever expected. I've gotten to know the researchers at UNC Lineberger and see firsthand what they're working on. I've connected with patients, advocates, and women who reached out simply because they saw themselves in my story. I've attended SGO conferences, supported the She Dunks on Cancer Educational Symposium at Duke (yes, even Duke, because when it comes to research we need everyone), and built friendships with She ROCKS and Project Nana.

This fight is bigger than any one organization.

Why NC4UC

Heading into our sixth year, it was time to grow into something more. NC4UC stands for North Carolina 4 Uterine Cancer, and the "4" stands for what we fight for: awareness, education, research, and cure. Golfing for the Gals is now part of NC4UC, and the nonprofit lets us do more, raise more, and reach more women.

We want every healthcare provider to keep doing gynecologic exams on post-menopausal women and talk to them about early detection. We want every woman to know the risk factors, the warning signs, and the symptoms that should never be ignored — the ones I ignored for too long. And we want the researchers at UNC Lineberger to have the funding they need to find a cure.

We have a lot of work to do. We're not stopping anytime soon.