The weight

Well dear readers, I haven’t posted anything recently largely because there has been nothing to report that’s any fun. The anxiety of pending surgery, the stupid kidney infection that tried it’s damnedest to ruin a really wonderful hot spring weekend, wrapping up work, advance directive blah blah blah….

So thought for a change I’d post some good news. Remember way back in one of those first information packed edu-taining posts where I talked about getting BRCA gene testing? If not here’s a reminder. The BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes are the breast and ovarian cancer genes. According to the fine website for the National Cancer Institute,

“A woman’s lifetime risk of developing breast and/or ovarian cancer is greatly increased if she inherits a harmful mutation in BRCA1 or BRCA2.

Breast cancer: About 12 percent of women in the general population will develop breast cancer sometime during their lives (4). By contrast, according to the most recent estimates, 55 to 65 percent of women who inherit a harmful BRCA1 mutation and around 45 percent of women who inherit a harmful BRCA2 mutation will develop breast cancer by age 70 years (5, 6).

Ovarian cancer: About 1.4 percent of women in the general population will develop ovarian cancer sometime during their lives (4). By contrast, according to the most recent estimates, 39 percent of women who inherit a harmful BRCA1 mutation (5, 6) and 11 to 17 percent of women who inherit a harmful BRCA2 mutation will develop ovarian cancer by age 70 years (5, 6).”

This, if you get pop culture references, is the Angelina Jolie gene. She was tested for it, had both mutations, and had a double mastectomy. Wonder if she got the scars…

So I got this testing at the urging of my oncologist even though I have no family history of breast cancer. There are two reasons why they wanted me checked out. The first reason is that I am so young. Often, when cancer pops up in women so young it’s because there’s been a spontaneous mutation in the BRCA1 and/or BRCA2 genes. But I hear you smart readers asking me already, “If you are going to have all of your breast tissues removed via the double mastectomy, why does it matter whether you’ve got the gene mutations or not?” It is an astute question and the answer is that if I had those mutations then my ovaries would be suspect as well. One rather crass doctor explained to me that, “If you’ve got eh BRCA gene mutations those ovaries may need to come out too.” Real casual like losing everything that makes me biologically female is no big deal. Like popping out ovaries is no worse than pulling teeth. 

Of course this has been weighing heavily on me and the test results took one thousand years to get here. In that span of time I have been really going over and over the idea of having children. I have been mostly ambivalent about having children, mostly too selfish and too busy for so long. I always thought that if I was in the right stage of life (whatever that means) and my partner wanted to have kids, I’d be game but wasn’t gonna be hitting the sperm bank on my own or anything. Well now, with the threat of that being taken away from me I want to have a kiddo or two. Don’t tell me how to live, cancer! So obviously the idea that I would not be capable of having my own children has been very hard to reconcile. Matter of fact, I finally cried. A good hard weepy, snotty, swole-faced, hiccupy cry about the idea that I might not be able to bear children. 

Me to Jake, “Will you love me even if I can’t have your baby?” (tears, snot, swollen, hic hic)

Jake to me, “Of course I will. We’ll just get one.”

Well dear readers, it turns out that that was mostly a lot of wasted snot cause check this out!

Now, there will be many over hurdles I must clear before having kids but at the very least I get to keep my ovaries! This is good news.