Six weeks ago I walked into an examination room in Woman College Hospital, my heart was pounding and my mind was racing.
“Tell me, what do you know about your family history? What do you know about BRCA 2? ”. I’ve been waiting approximately fourteen years for this question; I’ve been well versed in my answer since choosing to get tested and when Sonya, my genetic councillor asked, the words rolled off my tongue like memorized poetry.
In less than a week, I’ll take the first real step into a world I’ve been immersed in for, what feels like, my whole life.
Breast cancer has been a major part of my life for over twenty years. I was six years old when my mother had sat my brother and I down on our living room couch, as she told us our Aunt Michelle was “sick”. It seemed like breast cancer was the center of every adult conversation in our home, with terms like ‘tumour’ and ‘chemo’ taking center stage.
Six years after ‘Breast Cancer’ had become part of my vocabulary, my mother sat with my brother and I in that same living room, and broke the news she was diagnosed and that surgery and chemotherapy were next on our family agenda.