At first, I was devastated by the diagnosis…
In fact, my very second thought (after needing to tell my mother about it) was that the bladder cancer that killed my maternal grandfather at the age of 56 was also my destiny.
I was absolutely convinced that I’d never see my 57th birthday. I did not merely think this. I really believed it… and lived my life accordingly. Why wouldn’t I believe and accept this as my fate? My body already knows how to make colon cancer and sebaceous carcinomas. Why wouldn’t it make more of them and toss in a few more cancers just for fun?
Yet here I am, still. 62 years old… and able to share my story in the hope that it might help others.
It’s been a tortuous and torturous path, but I am still here because of that “routine” colonoscopy at age 50. I am still here because I pushed to have that lesion on my back biopsied. I am still here because I got referred to a genetic counselor. I am still here because I was referred to a genetic oncologist. And I am still here because there are some simple (not to be confused with easy) things one can do in order to nip most Lynch cancers in the bud.
(I am still here for lots of other reasons, too-reasons bettered shared at a later time so that I may give them their proper due)
Continue… My Lynch Syndrome, Part 7
