I just realized, as my doctor called, that I haven't updated since I went to Huntsman Cancer Institute. Last month I met with a genetic counselor who had made a graph based off my family medical history laying out my risk factors. I didn't realize I had so many family members with cancer, ranging from breast, to colon, to even brain tumors. Yikes!
She went over the "normal" person's risk of just be being a woman... no family or personal history involved. Then she showed how I increase with having a couple of lumps removed, having extremely dense breasts, etc. Then she shows the increase of having my mom as well as other female family members having breast cancer. It shows were my risk is now at being 30 and how it increases every 10 yrs. My lifetime risk is around 50-55% compared to those with no risk having a lifetime change of 7%.
We went over options... from doing nothing, mammogram/MRI'ing yearly, starting a drug commonly used for breast cancer treatment, and prophylactic mastectomies. I decided on getting clinical breast exams (performed by a breast specialist) 2x a year, as well as an MRI and a Mammogram 1x a year. Doing this I will have something going on every 3 months to ensure if something does come up, it will be caught early. I am going to discuss starting a medication with a medical oncologist that will as well as decrease the density of my breasts so if something does happen they can see it easier in the screenings as well as cut my overall risk in half if I take it for 5 yrs
I feel good about things... I feel like I have done everything that I can control. If, God forbid, I ever do get diagnosed I can feel good with my decisions and know this is something out of my control and deal with knowing God has a different plan for me.
So anyhow... there is my update. I'll let ya know how things go with the oncologist.
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