My Sister-In-Law Died of Hereditary Breast Cancer. There Was No Family History to Warn Her

If only one person meets with a genetic counselor because of this blog post, I'll know it was worth writing.

In March 2015, I tested positive for the BRCA1 gene mutation, inherited from my father. I am represented in the statistic that one out of every 40 people of Eastern European (Ashkenazi) Jewish ancestry carries a BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutation. This is 10 times the rate of the general population. These mutations substantially increase one's risk for breast and ovarian cancer, and slightly increase risk for other types of cancer.

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