"Does your sister have it?" is what they would ask when told that my Mom was clear, to which I would reply:"Ummmm, I don't have a sister."
"Well then I'd say you don't have much to worry about."
Simple as that. Nothing to worry about obviously. Silly me.
It wasn't until moving to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties that we really started to pay more attention. At the age of thirty, by request of my gynecologist, I began yearly Mammogram screenings inbetween pregnancies. I had my first core needle biopsy at age thirty three. Words like dense and fibrocystic were thrown around while I was sent home to put a bag of frozen peas on my breast and figure out how to nurse a two year old with a painful hole in my boob.
Because despite all of my concern, everyone was still of the belief that I had no reason to worry about Breast Cancer because my Mother did not have it.
Little did everyone know......I look just like my Dad.
As you can see, I am my father's daughter. I have is eyes, his build, his sweet sense of goofy wit and now it seems, his cancer. Out of the eight people in three generations my of father's family, six of us have cancer. Too many to be a coincidence, but genetic? Some are still not convinced.
Recently, I was BRCA 1 & 2 gene tested and was told that I had no mutation in that gene.
"Don't worry" the doctor said "You have a mutation on a gene but it's undetermined, we'll let you know as we learn more about it."
Undetermined??? Don't worry? She might as well have said 'At least my mother doesn't have it?'
How can you look at that chart and tell me we don't have a genetic link? How can you look at that chart and tell me not to worry? I thank God everyday that my Mother doesn't have cancer and I pester my father often to have everything checked. I know that when he goes to the doctor, they will listen and take care of him.
At least he can say, his mother had it and maybe be taken seriously.
