Great News for Keeping Body Parts!

Yesterday was a great day...Teddy's BD (thanks to all of you who touched him with greetings yesterday!), my 5th Zometa treatment went off with only 2 sticks this time vs. 4 the prior times and we got the results of my genetic testing for BRCA-1 & 2. The test was NEGATIVE...YEAH for keeping my body parts intact for now!

For those of you scratching your heads at this news, here's a short primer. Only about 5-8% of women with breast cancer test positive for these gene mutations, but when they do...it usually means the woman needs to seriously consider a double mastectomy and potentially even having their ovaries removed. In addition, their male/female sib's need to be tested next and based on those individual results, potentially have to make tough decisions for themselves, plus have their progeny tested. So a positive result gets to be a family thing pretty fast and with the size of my Lukens family, that could have had major implications for lots of people.

So we are in the next 10-15% category, which is the 'familial predisposition to cancer' category. What that means is that our family tree has sufficient amounts of cancer in prior and current generations (3 of the 6 of us sib's had/have cancer), that we all just need to be extra diligent about our screening exams. This means starting those screenings earlier and having them a bit more often, so I've notified all my family members about these guidelines.

So for now, the need for additional protective surgical procedures has been cancelled and we can all get on with getting back to some sense of normalcy with our collective lives and 'parts' intact!