Stage 3G endometrial cancer and I am still here 5 years later!

I am just now watching Anderson Cooper and Fran Drescher is on! She is my hero and the words she spoke are words I now speak to friends and family with symptoms that may be simple and explainable, or could be a gynecological cancer symptom. For four years I complained to my doctors of painful sex and a little post menopausal bleeding. No real tests were run and I was told I had an atrophied vagina? I was given estrogen cream and the bleeding got much worse and the pain still there. I was finally sent to a gynecologist by my primary care physician. She did a D & C and found what she thought was stage 1 endometrial cancer. I later found you cannot know the stage until after surgery and a staging is done through a pelvic wash! I had a hysterectomy by her. No oncologist was involved. No pelvic wash was done for staging! After 6 weeks the pain and bleeding was still there. My rather annoyed gynecologist did a biopsy, telling me there was only a 1% chance it was cancer. Well it was! She said it was stage 4 cancer and when I asked about my chances she said I had a good family support! What?? I was referred to an oncologist and I found an excellent gynecological oncologist also. After a staging surgery lasting many hours, I was classified with stage 3B cancer that had spread to my vagina. 6 chemo treatments, 40 radiation treatments, six internal radiation treatments later, I am now cancer free and it was just five years in January! Please don't be complacent with your doctors! Make them check things out thoroughly and get second and third opinions! Your life might depend on it! Oh, and there is a great, if different life after cancer!