Recently, I finished reading The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee, MD. Scribner, 2016. 596 pages. Most of us in Cancer Land are familiar with Mukherjee’s acclaimed 2011 Pulitzer prize-winning book, The Emperor of All Maladies. The latter was made into a PBS documentary. You can read my review of that four-part television series here. …
Hereditary cancer
I’m pleased to share the next #MetsMonday featured post by Mary S. Foti. This one covers a lot of ground. Mary shares about being a caregiver for her mother, being diagnosed with breast cancer herself, discovering she is BRCA2+, loss, survivor guilt, her advocacy work regarding EOL choices and yes, being told she had the …
The recent announcement by 23andMe, stating it now has FDA authorization to report on three specific BRCA1 and BRCA2 breast cancer gene mutations associated with breast, ovarian and prostate cancer via direct-to-consumer (DTC) testing, stirred up debate. Since reading about this announcement, I’ve been mulling over my thoughts on it.
One of the first thoughts that crossed my mind when we ushered in 2018, was gosh, it’s ten years since Mother died. Ten years. A whole decade. One-tenth of a century. 120 months. 520 weeks. 3,650 days. That old cliche, it still feels like yesterday fits. So does that other one, it seems like a …
When your cancer experience feels marginalized — have you experienced this? Not a good feeling is it? A topic that often comes up in emails I receive from readers and in Facebook groups I’m in is this one — feeling marginalized, regarding your cancer experience. This can happen regardless of stage, by the way. Have …