Went in for my yearly Well Women exam and they're finally doing some sort of testing on me for the breast cancer/ovarian cancer BRCA gene. Since Steph passed in 2005 I have mentioned it to my OB's (2 of them before my current one) and they always said that since it happened ONCE in the family and that since I am young there is nothing they could do. Obviously the best thing we could have done is gotten genetic testing from Steph when she was alive. However, there was so much going on in those 7 months when she was battling cancer that we didn't even think about it.
So with the new OB I told him when I got pregnant my concerns. Especially since Steph probably had the cancer when she was pregnant..whether she had it prior to pregnancy or if the pregnancy triggered the cancer, we'll never know. There is nothing the OB could do at that time as my pregnancy would mask a lot of things in my body. I have had a mammogram once and advised to do it every other year given my circumstance. So at my recent visit we talked about it again and he wasn't 100% sure on the requirements to do the test and he checked and I qualified. Otherwise the test is ballparked around $3,000 rather than the $375 I'm paying.
So in 3 weeks I'll have a little peace of mind. If I carry the gene, I consider getting the female parts removed after having kids. If I don't carry the gene, I get mammograms less often and continue to do self breast exams. We'll see!!
Oh...and did you know that being pregnant and nursing actually decrease your chances of getting breast cancer?
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