Plan A dealt with remission of her cancer and now she's shifted to Plan B because it's back, says Honolulu publicist Elissa (Lisa) Josephsohn.

“;We have Plan C, D and lots of plans. I'm not giving up,”; she said. “;I have a lot of things to do and people to see.”;

She said she was in remission five months. “;It turns out to be a very short word.”;

The communications and public relations consultant is speaking out because she wants women to recognize symptoms of ovarian cancer, “;the silent killer.”;

She has peritoneal cancer, a rare, often-misdiagnosed cancer that develops in a thin sheet on the inside wall of the abdomen. It is treated like ovarian cancer and has no cure.

  Josephsohn, 59, said she was still having pain after three abdominal surgeries over the past six years but doctors “;had no clue what I had.”;

Three days after working on the Diamond Head Crater Celebration in May last year, she began bleeding. “;I was very lucky I had a signal,”; she said in an interview at the Women's Cancer Center at Kapiolani Hospital for Women and Children.

One doctor told her she had ovarian cancer but she told him she had had a hysterectomy and has no ovaries. She went through an agonizing series of tests and from doctor to doctor in a process of elimination to identify the cancer, she said.

Retired neurologist Jim Pierce, a friend, was the first to suggest she had “;primary peritoneal cancer,”; she said. That was confirmed by Dr. Beth Karlan, gynecologist/oncologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, who removed eight tumors she described as the size of peaches, Josephsohn said.

  Genetic testing at Kapiolani showed she has the mutation linked with beast cancer and a higher incidence of ovarian cancer, she said, noting her mother died of breast cancer in 1963. So she has always been vigilant about breast exams.

Josephsohn is in a clinical trial here testing two drugs for ovarian cancer and she participates in a Cedars-Sinai clinical trial to monitor for breast cancer.

“;The strength I have is to tell people the symptoms (of ovarian cancer),”; she said. They include bloating, pelvic or abdominal pain, difficulty eating, feeling full quickly, the urgent or frequent need to urinate and abnormal bleeding from the vagina.

Don't ignore the symptoms, Josephsohn warns. “;By the time it is diagnosed it is at stage 4 - too late.”;

She is in a cycle with two weeks of chemotherapy and one week off. After chemo she is given fluids to prevent dehydration.

While recently being replenished with electrolytes, she recalled how she happened to come here from North Carolina. She planned to be a teacher after getting a master's degree in history but there were no jobs and she “;fell into PR (public relations),”; she said.

  In 1977 after selling out Carnegie Hall with the North Carolina Symphony, she got a call from the Honolulu Symphony asking whether she'd like to come here, she said. “;Everything I learned (about Hawaii) was on 'Five-O.' I loved it immediately,”; she said. “;I made a real commitment to bringing live theater here.”;

Among the big shows she promoted were “;Les Miserables,”; “;Phantom of the Opera,”; “;Cats”; and recently, “;Menopause the Musical”; and the Disney characters “;Doodlebops.”;

She recently took the “;Doodlebops”; to visit children at Kapiolani Hospital. “;I love to mentor kids. They really have gotten me through cancer,”; she said, reporting a 9-year-old boy told her, “;Auntie Lisa, it doesn't matter if you don't have any hair. You have nice ears.”;