posted Thursday, 1 December 2005
Just a quick note: my insurance company *finally* pre-approved my genetic testing (they wouldn't draw blood until the insurance approval came in...which took over a month to do...I mean, clearly I was trying to scam the system and get unnecessary needle sticks and testing...)
I met with Bridget (the same nurse that I met with for the initial counseling, along with another genetics expert to go over the final information. Basically, they wanted me to understand that the test may or may not provide conclusive information... and since I am the first person in my family being tested, even a "negative" result is not really conclusive (the only conclusive negative is if I were to test positive and another family member tested negative, since they already know exactly what it was that caused my cancer -- my family member does not have that genetic defect and is therefore a true negative) -- the tests are not always complete (they only test 80% of the DNA sequence) and there may be other genetic causes of breast cancer that they don't know how to test for yet. Ok, I get it... just take my blood and send it out already!
****any of my needle-queasy-friends should skip the next paragraph***
Finally, we headed to the lab. Anita, the same woman who always tested my blood before chemo, finally arrives and preps for the draw. My vein is apparently still quite hard from all the poisons they've been pumping into me. She inserts the needle and misses. I am stunned... this is my first "miss"... I mean, I've heard stories, but never had a problem myself... She jabs the needle around a few more times in my arm and finally gets the blood flowing. Not real pleasant... not really looking forward to giving them any more access to my veins... but at least this is done.
I should get results in 3-5 weeks. It will make a nice Christmas gift. Since I want to have surgery done by early January, we are cutting it close. Serves me right for procrastinating so much (but the insurance issue was not one I had anticipated). As I mentioned before, if the results come back positive, there is a very high risk that I will develop another tumor in the currently healthy breast (over a 50% chance...I don't remember the exact #s). As such, my dr has encouraged me to consider a "prophylactic bilateral mastectomy" (they have to take the left, as it currently has DCIS in it... but they would also take the right, to significantly reduce the chance of developing a future cancer) - to me it sounds like a no-brainer. In all honesty, it would make my decisions around surgery easier to have something conclusive to base it on (as the prophlactic surgery is always an option, regardless of the results)... but I guess I won't stress over it until I have all the information... then I will stress if I need to!
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