Sunday, May 20, 2012

I had dinner at my parents' house this evening and my younger sister and her family were there as well.  My younger sister is also positive for the BRCA-1 mutation gene and has some difficult choices ahead of her.  She said that her OB/GYN wants her to decide now how many kids she wants so that as soon as she is done they can remove her ovaries (they recommend it be done at age 35).  She just had her second child in November and will be 34 in August.  I told her that looking back I don't know that there is anything that I would have done differently or could have done differently.  I was 35 when I was diagnosed with my cancer!  I also felt very strongly before we had MJ that there was another spirit that needed to come into our family so I know that I was supposed to have her.  I also know several people with the BRCA-1 mutation who had their ovaries removed when they were much older than me and never developed ovarian cancer.  Unfortunately I don't have any good advice for my sister or anyone else in a similar position except to pray about it and do what feels right for you and your situation.  The unfortunate part about ovarian cancer, and the reason that it usually isn't detected until stage 3 or 4, is that there is no definitive test to diagnose it and there are no symptoms that are conclusive to it either.  We have no idea how long I had my tumors before we found them - sometimes the cancer is very fast growing.  My sister also knows a fellow nurse where she works that was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in her 20s but didn't want her ovaries removed because she still wanted to have kids.  I can't remember the details of what kind of treatment she received at the time but I know that they treated her and she kept at least one of her ovaries and went on to have a couple of kids.  She then had the cancer come back and I think at that time she had the ovaries removed and went through more chemo.