The million dollar question is why? Why me? Why at 38
years old? The inner scientist in me needs to know. If something caused my
cancer that I can't control, then so be it. If something caused my cancer that
I can control, I want to know.
In an effort to answer the question, I agreed to a
genetic test. I just got the results. My report reads, "The personal
history of cancer made the patient (me) a candidate for genetic testing for
hereditary breast and ovarian cancer syndrome (caused by mutations in the BRCA1
and BRCA2 genes). This testing showed NO MUTATION DETECTED by comprehensive
gene sequencing of BRAC1 and BRAC2. Thus, the cancer diagnosis was most likely
NOT related to a mutation in one of the genes."
This is good news for my relatives. I celebrate this
news and rejoice. My mom, aunts, cousins, and future granddaughters probably
don't have the genetic mutations in the breast cancer genes either. Yay!
Fantastic. It means I and my kin are no more at risk for ovarian cancer than
any other average woman...which is 2% in her lifetime. It means my relatives
probably won't follow in my footsteps and get breast cancer.
While this is great news, I still feel unsettled. The
bottom line is that if my cancer wasn't in the genes then non-hereditary
factors caused my breast cancer. Hmmm. What? Birth control pills? Did I not
breastfeed long enough? I should have exercised more. I ate too much meat/ junk
food/ milk/soy. I drank too much wine. I worry too much and the stress caused
it. The big question is do I now make radical changes in my life to keep these
environmental factors from causing my cancer to resurface again? Probably. I
mean I do intend to eat better, exercise more, drink less, but hell, we all intend to do these things with or
without the cancer history. The thing is though that I should probably just
concentrate on living right now. I should probably not blame my pre-cancer self
for anything. I am letting that pizza-eating, wine-drinking, gave-her-kids-a-bottle
woman off the hook. I can guarantee that I made bad choices. I can guarantee
that I coulda/shoulda/woulda done things better, but no matter how much
soul-searching I do, the fact remains that one day, I will die. There aren't
choices that are going to prevent that.
However, I am not dying today! Today, I am going to
do some yoga and I'm not going to stress about it. I just wanted to blog the
news for my family. One thing I have relished through this process is information.
I have scoured the internet for other people's stories and it is only fair that
I provide mine. If we keep communicating, we can not only learn more about the
causes and effects of breast cancer, we can overcome it. That way, even though
we all will someday die, we won't have to die from breast cancer. We can use
that damn pink ribbon for another cause.
