All Clear!

I had my first follow-up mammogram since my diagnosis in January. I was soooo anxious for the past couple weeks leading up to this. I have had a headache from grinding my teeth because that's what I do when I am nervous.

I had two views on each side and then a magnified one right on my scar. The worst part is waiting afterwards which I forgot about. While still wearing your johnny, you are put in a waiting room with all of the other women who just had their mammograms. It took about 1 1/2 hours for the radiologist to read the films. I was lucky to be in a room with very fun women. The staff said that they had never seen such a room that was so filled with laughter!

The radiologist who read my films was the same one that did my work up in January - Dr. Semine. He is the director of the Women's Imaging Center at Newton-Wellesley and a wonderful man. He remembered me and when I met with him to go over my results he made sure to check in with me about the past year. All my films were clear - nothing to worry about!

My next exam will be in 6 months (May) when I will have an MRI. 6 months from then (next November) I will have another mammogram.

More Genetic Testing

Two weeks ago I met with another genetic counselor at Mass General upon the recommendation of Dr. Goss, aka Dr. McDreamy. Long story short...the genetic testing I had done previous came back with a result of "no mutation detected" for the BRAC 1 and the BRCA 2 gene (breast cancer and ovarian cancer genes). I had the short sequencing done which is about 85% accurate. The genetic counselor at MGH told me about the full sequencing test which in combination with the other one would be about 99% accurate. I went ahead and opted to get that done. The results came back the same - no mutation detected. Good news!

We also discussed another gene called p53. This one is not so good. It is a very rare genetic mutation that only a couple hundred people in the world are known to have. It increases your risk of brain (any type) cancer, breast cancer, adrenal cancer, childhood leukemia and sarcomas (soft tissue and bone cancers). With my genetic history, she beleives there is a 10% chance of me carrying this gene. I did not want to get tested for it. There is nothing you can do about it if you are found to be a carrier so what's the point? We both agreed that it would cause needless anxiety and worry and it is best for now to just forget about it. It would be nice to know I wasn't a carrier but testing isn't done that way...