A small bit....

After getting jabbed in one arm and then having my other forearm dug into (who takes blood from the forearm??) this morning - blood tests every Friday are getting really old - I got a bit of good news. I haven't really heard "good news" in front of my name for quite a while, well, other then that the tumors are shrinking. But I received my BRCA results this morning and they are negative! Which sort of confounded the geneticist, to the point that she's even asking the lab (there is one lab in the US that does the genetic tests for BRCA) to see if I need one more specialized test that they are able to do. She was surprised because of my age, and the fact that my mother and grandmother have both had breast cancer, along with a maternal great-aunt... however all of those were post-menopausal, non-agressive and frankly nothing like mine. I had a feeling all along it was not genetic, just crappy crappy luck. What this means is that now I 1) am not passing on a mutation to my unborn daughter - she will obviously be at greater risk because of me but the risk is reduced in comparison to if I was positive 2) I will likely only be having a single mastectomy now and 3) I don't have to have my ovaries removed, at least not anytime soon. So, hopefully this is the beginning of a roll for the "I have good news for you" appointments.

Since I'm in CA I thought I'd post a pic of the Endeavour fly-by for anyone who hasn't seen the million other much better pictures on the news or whatever. This was from my front yard.