Foreign tongue

The experience was similar to visiting a new country where you know some of the language. Enough to get by, order from the menu, ask where the bathroom is located, but not enough to understand the crux of an entire conversation.

That's how I feel about my experience with the geneticist yesterday. He's a brilliant man, but he's a researcher who is excited about his area of expertise and shares this extensive knowledge in great detail. I think he expected we'd understand it all. Angie, with her medical background, gleaned more from the conversation than mom or I, who at times sat glassy eyed with blank looks on our faces.

I understood DNA, RNA and mututions in one of the strands, etc. I got the general gist and it helped when he drew pictures. But I don't even remember all of the terminology.

I did walk out of there with the understanding that if I have the BRCA1 gene (which is highly likely given that it's in my family and I have ovarian cancer at age 42), it seems to respond well to platin type of chemotherapy, which I'm receiving. Yeah!

But, if I have the gene, my mom definitely has it (and will need to make some medical decisions to protect herself) and my sister has a 50/50 chance of inheriting it - my fingers are still crossed she doesn't. I'm willing to take the hit (since I don't have a choice in the matter now).

The statistics are sobering for those who do have the BCRA1 gene. The chances of developing breast cancer is something like 60 to 90 per cent. But it drops to half if a woman has a hysterectomy and bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy (fancy term for the removal of both fallopian tubes and ovaries). So on top of my cancer treatment, I will now be referred to a breast cancer specialist to discuss my options.

The doctor asked if I wanted to wait until after my cancer treatment to talk to the breast cancer physicians. No! Let's deal with everything now to make me as healthy as possible.

I came home last night to a bald husband. He looks good bald but, damn him, he had a five o'clock shadow by the time he went to bed. He exclaimed his velcro head got caught on the towel after his shower this morning. I'm shiny bald and he sported regrowth hours after the shave. He says he's going to maintain his baldness, but that seems like an awful lot of work just to support me. But I appreciate the sentiment.

Diane and Pete are visiting on Saturday for the big shave off in support of my alopecia (hair loss). I'll be sure to post a picture of the four of us sporting our bald heads soon. (Of course, Michael may need to do a reshave on Saturday so he doesn't look out of place.)

I'm praying today that my white and red blood cells, and my platlets have recovered enough for chemo tomorrow. Despite the yucky side effects, I really want to kill more cancer cells. So bring it on!

Your fighting friend,
Tina