December 29, 2014 - Genetic Counseling Today!

We arrived for our 8:00 am appointment at Presbyterian Hospital to meet with a genetics counselor. I was looking forward to this appointment and really excited to have my questions answered and to become more knowledgeable of the role of genetics with cancer. I qualified for testing because of my triple negative status, my Jewish ancestry and having an oncologist who leaves no stone unturned - a big shout out to Dr. Mitchell!

We only waited for a couple of minutes before "Kristin" came around the corner wearing a very big smile! We "meshed" immediately! She was very informative and eager to teach and willing to share her wealth of knowledge! It was obvious to me that she "eats, lives and breathes" genetics/cancer! We finished up our session with a "Cancernext" panel being drawn and sent to the lab. "Cancernext" is a next generation sequencing panel that analyzes 28 genes associated with increased risk for breast, ovarian, uterine, colon and other cancers. BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 are also included in this panel. BRCA results are so important to know especially since we have 2 daughters and 2 granddaughters. It was an hour so well spent discussing and learning about genetics and cancer and realizing the more we know about cancer, the more  we may be able to control events. KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!