WHAT I’M GOING TO DO ABOUT CANCER

My lovely readers, let me start by saying, I don’t have cancer. If you have followed my journey, you know that we have come through some cancer in our family with my mom undergoing a double mastectomy in January after battling cancer on and off for 9 years. It’s not the first time we have had to face cancer. My beloved Aunt battled the same kind of breast cancer in 2017 and won. My Dad conquered prostate cancer in 2011 as well.

I no longer consider a cancer diagnosis a death sentence, because it hasn’t taken every one of my family members and friends who have received that diagnosis. Doctors, surgeries, radiation, chemo, alternative medicine, nutritional strategies, prayer, lifestyle changes and meds have saved almost all of them, some even miraculously.

However, it has taken one. Stomach cancer starved the life out of my precious Uncle Lairdy. He was awesome. He rode a motorcycle and drove the coolest brown van. He loved Pink Floyd, antiques, chocolate, ketchup and people. He gave his life away to the down and outers and he had our Grandma’s loud laugh. He spoiled me, adored me, played with me and took me to countless movies. I was a flower girl in his wedding. He came to my wedding and then barely lived long enough to hold my sweet baby girl in his frail, bony arms. The last time I saw him he was carrying a small bag around with him everywhere he went, because he was continually throwing up. He took us to a baseball game and had to duck his head to do that every few minutes. Though our family has beaten cancer multiple times, cancer has also devastated my family by stealing from us, and the world, the brightest light.

I’m not afraid of cancer but I hate it. There is way more cancer in my extended family than what I have listed here. As I have walked with my parents and my Aunt through cancer, I have wondered about myself. Am I destined to have these same issues? Is it a family thing? This last January, after watching what my mom went through in losing both of her breasts, I decided to do all that I could do to make my body a hostile environment for cancer to give myself my best chance. I started by cutting out sugar (except for all of those chocolate eggs at Easter and the 4,000 other times I have cheated.) I decided to be proactive and start taking care of myself now, rather than waiting until something bad happens to wake me up.

I signed myself up for a physical and when I got to the clinic, they asked me to fill out a questionnaire to see if I qualified for hereditary cancer genetic testing. Bing, bing! I won the prize. My family history made me a surefire candidate and I took the blood test that day. I didn’t think about it much. I told myself that knowledge is power and that it would be better to know what I face, rather than not know. It took six weeks for the results to come back and I barely thought about it in the meantime.

Six weeks later, I got a call. My results showed 3 different mutations, which is quite a lot. One mutation drastically upped my risk for breast and ovarian cancer. The second one upped my risk for gastric cancer. The third one is thought to elevate my breast cancer risk.

What the crap? I don’t have time for this! I was not as ready for this information as I thought. I went to the clinic to pick up my results and then spent that evening doing the exact wrong thing to do when having received this kind of news…I googled it. I read about women getting their breasts and ovaries removed because of these mutations and that freaked me out. I read statistics and studies until my heart started to beat too fast. I grew anxious and fearful and really felt off my game for a few stunned days.

Then I remembered…I’m not sick. I’m healthy. I still have some choices. This is the best possible position to be in! I may be taken by surprise by the hidden mysteries of my genetic makeup being suddenly revealed but I am not a victim of anything. I made the choice to know and now I know. It’s not a death sentence! It is information about my genetic predisposition and vulnerabilities. I can’t change that but I CAN change how I take care of my body. I can be more intentional about my life. I can stop wasting time obsessing over how big my butt is getting and go for a freakin’ walk. I can value my days and be more careful who I give my time away to. I can eat real food. I can tell fear to take a hike and really get into my life.

I can also have a bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy (my ovaries removed.)

So that is what I am going to do. After research, consulting with my Dr. and getting second opinions from my Dr. friends, I have opted to make the powerful choice of having my beloved babymakers ousted. Here’s the deal: my stomach, colon and breasts can all be monitored to make sure they are in good health and I have been doing that for years now. Ovaries, however, are a little more tricky. Ovarian cancer is hard to spot and once spotted, difficult to treat with any real degree of success. I could keep them in there and hope for the best or I could eliminate the risk altogether and destroy one more landing pad for fear. So that’s what I’m doing next month: kissing my lady balls goodbye.

Science is freaking amazing. Genetic testing is currently the fastest growing medical field. New discoveries are made every day. One of the genetic markers that showed up in me was one my Dr. had never even heard of. He had to educate himself in order to know how to proceed! It feels good to even have the option to make a decision like this. Thank you science.

One thing I have observed while watching my mom walk out her journey with cancer out is that people will inundate you with their unsolicited cancer cures, suggestions and “you have to’s.” Most of it is overwhelming and unhelpful when you are trying to make such a huge personal decision. The people I want to hear from right now are the gals who have either a) had this procedure or b) been through menopause. Ovarian removal induces instant menopause with no ramp up whatsoever. I cannot use hormones of any sort to balance things out as the type of breast cancer my family experiences is responsive to hormones. So, if you have advice for me about hot flashes, mood swings and any of the other…uh…changes I should expect, bring it on.

My Beloved Uncle Lairdy,

We were dealt quite a genetic hand weren’t we? If we had known how you would suffer, we would have taken every precaution to ward that off. We would have educated ourselves on our risk factors and signed you up for every early diagnostic test you could have, just for more time with you. Since we are such a genetic hot mess, I am going to do everything for me that we would have done for you, if we had known. I want to value my life like I value yours.

I miss you,

Michelle