Waiting…and Waiting…and Waiting

Emmy just turned two in July, and her vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds. She amazes me every day. Her pronunciation isn’t always clear; she will be demanding mucus in the car and I’ll say “What are you saying? Mucus?” “A song, a song!” she’ll demand instead. She means music!

My vocabulary? Amazingly, at 40, my vocabulary is expanding as well. What is “RT”? I just searched Twitter’s help section to see what the heck RT means. Re-tweet was the answer, and it turns out there’s a right way to RT and a wrong way.

What about BRCA? BRCA is breast cancer, as in breast cancer gene testing. It’s been about three weeks since I found out my mom went to have a gene test. We’ve always wondered if we have the BRCA gene mutation; Mom was first diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 40, and I was 27 when I was diagnosed.

If we find out Mom does have the mutation, what then? Most likely my sisters and I have the mutation as well. One of the mutations will make us more at risk for developing ovarian cancer along with breast cancer. Whoo-hoo! A double whammy! We’ll have some important decisions to make.

My biggest worry is about my daughters. Have I passed the mutation on to them? Now there’s some motherly guilt that will be pretty hard to recover from.

But then again, maybe I won’t need to feel guilty. Maybe my mom and I both having breast cancer at a young age is just a coincidence. A strange and unnerving coincidence, but perhaps one more bearable than having the BRCA gene mutation.

And so we wait….

14 Replies to “Waiting…and Waiting…and Waiting”

  1. That has to be a scary wait. But you can NOT blame yourself if you have the gene and your girls do too. The gene doesn't mean they will get breast cancer, but that they could. Also, if they know they could then they will be better prepared for it, catch it early, and get early treatment then early remission.It's going to be fine.

  2. Thinking of you during this time! And praying for good news! Re the speech thing, I have the same issues with Nate ALL the time. And he gets so frustrated with me when I can't interpret what he's saying. He just sighs and says, "Never mind.":)

  3. if you DO have the mutation, why should you feel any guiltier than your mom for passing it on? it really isn't your fault. you are lovely and so is your mom, and so are your girls. maybe by the time your girls are in their 20's and 30's the treatment for breast cancer will be much simpler. you and your family are in my prayers. did your sisters have cancer too?

  4. None of my sisters or aunts have had breast cancer, so that's a positivesign. I think you're right about treatments by the time the girls grow up.Thanks for your prayers!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

CommentLuv badge

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.