Public PSA About Cancer and Genetics

[maereth]

I generally don’t post personal things or things about my family in these public posts, but this is a topic that is near and dear to me at the moment and I think it is necessary to share.

A week ago my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 55. Since both of my grandmothers have also had breast cancer, I contacted my doctor to see if

Comments

[penguindreamz]

As someone with colon cancer (stage IV metastatic) THANK YOU! The Colon Cancer Alliance is doing such great work trying to remove the stigma associated with colorectal cancer. Before the Susan G. Komen foundation, breast cancer was one of those things you only talked about in whispers. The CCA is working to do for colorectal cancer what Komen did for breast cancer.

When I first saw my oncologist before my surgery and before I'd been staged or we knew for sure what we were looking at, his nurse told me that although my grandmother, 2 grandfathers, and my maternal great-aunt all had cancer, my risk wasn't as high as I thought because no relative in my mom or dad's generation had cancer. So far it's skipped their generation. I'm the first in my generation among my sister and our cousins.

And you are correct, colon cancer is very treatable when caught early. It's actually the only cancer that can be treated before it becomes cancer, by removing polyps found during colonoscopy.

[maereth]

You're still in treatment, right? Can I ask what you're on?

[penguindreamz]

Yep, my treatment is going through the end of November. I'm on Folfox 6 with Avastin. Folfox is 5fu, Oxylaplatin and Leucovorin. I get the Oxy and Leuco and Avastin every other Wednesday, takes about 6 hours. Then I have a pump hooked up through my port that I go home with and I get the 5fu for the next 46 hours, give or take a couple of hours. For lower stages it's Folfox 4, which I take it is a lower dosage. There's also Folfiri, the difference being the Oxy is replaced with Iri-something or other. There's also a pill called I think Xeloda, they're testing my tumor to make sure I don't have KRAS mutation, if I do then I won't ever be able to take Xeloda if I need to (in case we need to change meds if one stops working).

[penguindreamz]

And there's a good chance most of those meds are misspelled. I stopped caring a while back :)