The envelope plopped on the table... and I knew before it was open.  The nurse who summoned me to the tiny exam room to talk to the oncologist before chemo wasn't her bubbly self.  Body language gives it away when news isn't good.  The ARNP smiled at me but it wasn't the smile that says you're going to love this report.  It was that flat smile without teeth and the brow of consternation... "You have BRCA 1 gene mutation."  Wait a minute... this isn't what I want to hear!  I want to hear that this was a random colliding of the cosmos that bestowed breast cancer on me.  That I can blame the Hanford Nuclear Plant that... oops! ... "accidentally" released radioactive iodine into the air in the late 1940's and early 50's so it tainted the organic milk we drank from our own cow and the pesticide free vegetables we grew on our farm.  I want to blame the hormones in the plump supermarket chicken and the bug spray used to keep produce looking picture perfect.  Our world is irradiated, processed, preserved, fertilized, caffeinated, UV rayed, smogged, smoked, deep fried and overfed.  We're couch potatoes with microwaves and cell phones shooting death rays at us. Every breath we take, thing we eat, movement we don't make, stress we live with is going to kill us... and now a gene mutation thrown in is the kicker!

The good old family tree has termites that my branch inherited.  It is what it is.  After a day or two of stewing about it, I'm glad I know what we're dealing with.  I made the phone calls you never want to make to your daughters and wrote the letter to all the cousins, nieces and nephews to urge them to be more vigilant.  It's not the death sentence it was 20-30 years ago.  There are options and tests and information that didn't exist when Aunt Dottie found a walnut sized lump at 43.  When Barbara was 42, she might have gone to the doctor much sooner for the symptoms of ovarian cancer if there had been an inkling our gene pool was working against her.  Bonnie at 42 and Brenna, just 34, might have been fine if there had been such a common thing as a mammogram 25 years ago.  Cousin Donna, at 38, had the double mastectomy even though only one breast was affected.   She is a PINK wearing, BC Walking survivor... and so am I... and so will all the women in our family survive because they will be empowered with the knowledge that we can't ignore our monthly self exams.  We will ask for mammograms even though convention says we're too young.  We will fight the insurance company for the MRI, the gene test, the ultrasound... all the necessary things to make sure we will live to be wrinkled little old ladies!  We're fighting mad and we're not going to let complacency take us!  Whew... I guess I'm out of denial and straight into anger!  Darn those stages!  I'm not going to accept defeat.  There will be a cure and I want to see it in my lifetime.  Get the exterminator and let the termites beware!