My story

About a year ago I started to have major breast pain. It was so bad that I could barely put a bra on. No one could even brush against or even breathe on my aching breasts. So off to the GYN I went and he felt nothing. He sent me to one of his friends that is a breast specialist. After my first time mammogram and breast sonogram the breast doc determined that there was nothing wrong. Instructed me to stay away from caffeine, chocolate and other trigger foods as well as a suppliment regimin. I was doing fine after that. I cut my caffeine as much as i could and did what i could to make the pain go away. It worked.

June comes and I had my recheck. Within the months between my neighbor had been telling me about her BRCA story. Her GYN kept insisting that she take the BRCA test because her mother had breast cancer and a few other direct family members did too. Finally she decided to take the test and boom. She was BRCA1 positive. 2 weeks later she decided to get her ovaries and fallopian tubes taken out. A week after that she found out that her ovaries had pre-cancerous cells in them already. WOW. She then decided to have the propholactic mastectomy before she even has a chance to see cancer. Its a few months later and she couldnt be happier with her choice.

I had to come back to my breast doctor 6 months later for a recheck and to see how I was doing. My neighbor had been bugging me all this time to get myself checked for the BRCA gene. During this time, my cousin, who is 49/50 years old was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a mastecomy as a result. With that and the fact that my fathers mother had ovarian cancer, i decided to ask about the BRCA test. The doctor was all non-challant about it and was sure it would come back negative. 

Nope. I was referred to a genticist and was told I am BRCA2 positive. The doctor was really nice and compassionate. She told me my statistics and chances of ovarian and breast cancer. She introduced me to an oncologist. She suggested that I remove my ovaries and fallopian tubes (oncologist concurred) because i am done with my family. Ovarian cancer is scary. Its called the silent killer because it is usually only discovered after it's in stage 3 which is typically too late.

So here I am. I have to decide what to do with the parts that define me as a female. My breasts that define me as a woman. HOLY crap! these are big decisions. Do i remove and take things out because they are ticking time bombs? do i leave them alone and hope we find cancer before its too late?

This is probably the hardest decision I have ever had to make.