Breast cancer and genetics

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Karen Taylor

5:39 AM on 28 July, 2010

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I found out last October that I had inherited, from my mother, the BRCA2 gene mutation. This came as a shock after 45 years of never giving it a though! My mother developed ovarian cancer at the age of 58 and 8 years later is still fighting. She has never had problems with her breasts and neither had my grandmother, who also carries the gene and is 89 years old, so their was no indication that her cancer was genetic. Only the death of 3 out of 11 of my mother's cousins from one family prompted a family member to get checked. The gene was discovered. I was devastated when I first found out, but to be honest there are worse things of inherit and I now feel is a position where I can be proactive. I do worry about passing this gene onto my family, but by the time they are young adults, who knows where gene therapy and genetic discoveries will be at! I have to park that one for now. I underwent a total hysterectomy in April to greatly reduce my risk of developing this disease. I can only do what I can now by living a healthy lifestyle and living life. I am glad I found out, rather than burying my head in the sand and pretending that I was bound to have my mother's good gene. Better to act now with regular screening than to ignore and find a lump. I think genetic and gene therapy will be able to do predictive testing one day and save many people from getting this horrible disease. I have just found out that my brother does not carry the same mutation and therefore his 3 girls are safe.