"Faith is not simply a patience which passively suffers until the storm is past. Rather, it is a spirit which bears things...with blazing, serene hope." - Corazon Aquino

Oct 13, 2015

Well, after getting the genetic results I was dreading, my Inner Ninja was hastily awoken from her long rest and ready to help me get over this hump – ha or bump? When faced with something scary I did what has come naturally to me – I read. I looked into support. I looked for reliable information to inform myself. Newest studies. Preventative options. Screening. Clinical Trials.  I read anything I could get my hands on with regards to BRCA1.

Did you know that one of the co-discoverers of the BRCA mutation lives in Edmonton?! Ya, Dr Narod - he’s Canadian and lives 3 hours from me. I had to resist the urge to show up at his clinic’s doorstep and sit him down and get him to teach me all he knew about BRCA1 lol I settled for reading all there was on his website. Here’s the link for anyone who wants to look:

Women's College Research Institute

Forewarned is forearmed in my books.

It’s a bit strange though to discover at 37 that there is a part of you – a part of your very genetics - that you never knew about. Even stranger the timing of it all. I was in the midst of trying to figure out who I was, and now I had been given some answers at a genetic level! I better be careful what I wish for in future…

I stayed away from those nasty stats (time has not made me any fonder of statistics …) and most of what I read didn’t scare me. Since discovering the mutations, a lot has been done for prevention. They may not be easy decisions to make, but at least there are options. Most importantly they are mostly effective options. They may not reduce your risks to zero but they put you closer on par with the rest of the population. Even the playing field so to speak.

I am good with that.

I didn’t think about my kids. We quite honestly are so far away from when their decisions will need to be made that prevention and detection could be completely different by then. I also didn’t plan on sharing this bit of information with the kids as it had zero impact on their life at the moment, and we would have time when they were older to talk about it. I have to say this was a HUGE silver lining, and it made it easier to deal with it. Dealing with my own fears and mortality is 1000x easier than dealing with my kids’.

The other thing that raised my spirits was the thought of my Dad’s family. His whole family lived in Nova Scotia, so after he died they eventually just drifted from us. So I haven’t really known any of his family (he was an only child and his parents died before I was born) This awful piece of info might be the very thing that could put me in touch with people who had known my Dad. Family I had never met.

My family.

The thought that I may be able to connect with family I had never known warmed my heart. Maybe I’d meet people who looked like me? Everyone who knew my Dad says I am the spitting image of him. Obviously letting them know about the mutation would not be super pleasant (ha understatement…) but just the thought of potentially gaining more family members made me happy. It would also have the added bonus of giving me an idea how prevalent canser was (or wasn’t) on that side. And maybe even save a life, if my warning  could result in early detection or better, prevention.

This news came at a time when I needed a distraction. Since coming back to work, I was having a harder and harder time with my physical image. Essentially I started to loathe my body. In a way I have never loathed it before. I tried going to the gym at work thinking that would help – but it made it worse. I was ashamed of it. I honestly kept wondering if people wondered if I was female or male. I eventually stopped going to the classes because they made me feel so badly about myself. I think it would have been easier if I could have just said to those in the classes “I had breast canser and a double mastectomy”. Maybe then I wouldn’t have wondered if everyone was glancing at me. Or staring. I don’t know to this day if they did or if it was just in my head. But I do know I shed a tear…or maybe 100 over it. With my new quest to find out all I could about BRCA1, it made my physical appearance seem less important.

The other strange thing that happened almost instantly is that my fear of recurrence practically vanished. I think my logic (if you can call it logic..) was what was a 10-15% chance of recurrence compared to an almost 50% chance of ovarian canser? I suppose some might say I replaced one worry for another, but honestly it didn’t feel like that. I wasn’t worried. Ya I know, apparently spazzy me missed the memo. Is that weird? It suddenly seemed silly to stress about recurrence. I had bigger problems to deal with. I had expected the news to increase my fears of recurrence to new heights but it did the complete opposite. WTF?! Maybe chemo really did scramble my brains… It was another unexpected silver lining though, and at this point I’d take them where I could.

So there I was, now Cindy “the canser genetic mutation carrier”, doing my best to find ways to regroup and refocus. I gave myself the first night I got the news to fall apart, but then that pity party was over. I think part of learning to be resilient is always moving forward – no matter how slow the pace and no matter how small the step. And trust me, the next while consisted of  very small steps at a snail’s pace! Having an extended pity party would not change anything and would not help me feel better, so the only option for me was to carry on. I hope my reactions to life’s challenges will help my kids when they face their own challenges – and I don’t mean canser. Any life challenge. I want my kids to be resilient. Who doesn’t? I hope when they look back, they will see the strength more than the weakness of how we dealt with the news/blows over the last couple years and I hope they know in their hearts we did the best we could, with the knowledge we had at the time to get our family through the rough spots. I think I starting learning about resiliency from my own mom. Losing my Dad at such a young age and having to cope as a (suddenly) single mom in your 30’s doesn’t leave room for an extended pity party either.  I think my upbringing prepared me in a way for canser treatment and the attitude I had going through it. Regardless of everything my mom went through, I felt safe,  loved and cared for and remember that when I look back at the challenges from back then. I only hope I can be half the mom she was to me to Em and Ethan.

I am learning that life is always unpredictable. Sometimes there are good surprises, sometimes there are bad ones. But everyone has their burden. Mine happens to be canser. I have learnt there are burdens just as bad, and worse than that. There is no sense trying to compare burdens – you can only understand when you have walked in that person’s shoes.

I made it through treatment. They can’t find any canser. I am young. Loved. Healthy (as far as I know). What else matters really? It doesn’t mean smooth sailing. Far from it – my path and my children’s path will likely have  mountains that need to be climbed. But the mountains I’ve already conquered have taught me things I would have never known without climbing them.

And so it was with a sort of blind faith in the future, another chapter of our lives closed, and a new one began.