Previving!
October 2, 2019 is National Previvor Day. National Previvor Day is observed in the middle of the last week of September, during National Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer Week, bridging the gap between the National Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month of September and National Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October. This is a day that many don’t probably recognize, but it’s a day that I believe will be a part of many more women’s lives in the near future.
Recently, Nina Garcia from Project Runway shared she had a preventative double mastectomy after finding she was positive for the BRCA gene.
Read the article here: https://parade.com/872791/beckyhughes/project-runways-nina-garcia-on-her-double-mastectomy-it-was-the-right-decision-for-me/
It’s been 6 years since Angelina Jolie announced to the world she carries a BRCA 1 mutation and had a prophylactic double mastectomy to lower her risks of development breast cancer.
I respect Angelina and Nina for their decision to lower their risk of development breast cancer. It’s not an easy decision and there are a lot of mental and physical that you go through. The media brought a lot of attention to this story which I think is amazing and I hope it can bring light to other early detection and preventative stories that aren’t centered on a celebrity as well as on women who are young adults.
Unfortunately not everyone is easily able to detect their risk and take preventative measures (I’ll talk about more about this). Also, if they are given the chance to detect early it’s not always at an older age. Recently there have been many who have found out at a very young age that they are at risk such as Bright Pink founder, Lindsay Avner.
Read her story here: http://theeverygirl.com/lindsay-avner-of-bright-pink/
I’d like to recognize and celebrate one special person in my life that was able to eventually detect her risk and take preventive measures at a young age. This person is my younger sister, Lindsey.
After I was diagnosed and tested for the BRCA gene, my doctor wanted to talk to my sister and family about the BRCA gene. (The bug got put into my sister’s ear about finding out!) We didn’t know if the BRCA gene was passed down since we didn’t know if my grandma or aunt were positive for the gene. She was open to getting tested but the main concern was insurance coverage. Something I’ll talk about I’m sure down the road on the site. There was a lot of loopholes and back doors and front doors that she had to go through. It took months before she received confirmation that insurance would cover the $4,000 blood test. The approval came because her blood sister had been recently diagnosed early with breast cancer. It had nothing to do with extended family history.
We waited for weeks to find out the results. All that I could think was “please I hope she doesn’t have it.” We received the unfortunate news. Despite the BRCA 2 positive results, my sister took the news well. She realized that the next steps would be to meet with my oncologist, breast surgeon and reconstruction surgeon. What an awful thing for her to do, but my family was behind her the entire way supporting any decision she had to make. Her options were to take tamoxifen - a daily oral pill to help prevent breast cancer or to have a prophylactic double mastectomy. After watching the treatment I had started going through, she knew she didn’t want to ever have to go through this regime. She chose the direction of surgery.
I’ll never know mentally what she was going through as someone who hadn’t been diagnosed and maybe never would be diagnosed, but making the decision to prevent a diagnosis from ever happening. I’m sure she struggled with the idea for sure, but her brave decision took her from a 50% chance of having breast cancer to 1%. She is a PREVIVOR! Lindsey will be sharing her story at a later date for those of you interested in learning more about her journey.
For more information on prevention and early detection talk to a genetic counselor. Ask your doctor for a referral. Don’t be afraid to ask about your health and talk about your family history. Check out the following resources to be educated on early detection, understand your risk, and set monthly reminders to #feel it on the first: BrightPink, FORCE, Keep A Breast Foundation, B4BC and The Brem Foundation.