Week from Hell

I'm not quite sure what I did to deserve all this bad news but it's coming at me rather fast.

I got an email from my sister a few weeks ago asking me if anyone had told me about my aunt. The answer was "no". Last year she had breast cancer, underwent chemo, recovered nicely. All ok now but she went for a check-up and they found she has the BRCA1 gene, which is some sort of hereditary cancer-causing defect. I'm a little vague on this cos I started to read up about it but it was all too distressing so I stopped....but not before I managed to ascertain that there's a risk of inheriting this gene, which can cause ovarian/breast cancer. General idea was that she wanted her daughters (my cousins), my sister and me to get tested.

Been thinking about it but wasn't really convinced about the need. After all, if I do have it, what am I going to do? I had stopped reading at the part that says "you can have your ovaries removed". Me and knives. No way!

So been mulling this over in my mind and woke up one day with an eye infection. I don't think the two are connected - just badly written. This happened mid-last week. Went in on Monday. Got upset about something, can't remember what. I'm on some medication that is totally screwing me up plus the heat doesn't help. Worked at home on Tuesday cos it felt like a good thing to do. Eye was itchy. By Wednesday, it was beautifully swollen. YUK. Someone told me it's been going round the office but how I caught I'll never know. It's not like the people that had it got that close to me but anyway. Pretty much had sorted itself out by Sunday evening.

At some point, can't remember exactly, my sister also told me that she'd found a lump and was going to get it checked on Monday (yesterday). She had a mammogram back in May and they saw nothing so I didn't think it was going to be major. Side note: it has struck me to ask whether she went for that just as a matter of routine or because of the thing with my aunt. If the latter then I'm pretty upset that it's taken this long for someone to mention it to me...and even then it was by accident. Ho hum.

Spoke to my mother last week and she was all dramatic about things and we had an argument - not uncommon really. Course she was all concerned about my sister and I had to remind her that she does have two daughters and it might have been nice if the elder one had been informed of all of this. "Well I didn't want to tell you over the phone". Great, so instead I get an email. Gee, that's so much better.

She called me this Sunday and I ignored the call. The beauty of Caller ID. Oh no, not true, I was actually out (intentionally) when she called and I accidentally forgot to return the call.

Yesterday my mother called me at work. At soon as I saw her phone number I knew it wasn't good. Turns out that my sister has breast cancer. Can you believe that? They don't know why the mammogram didn't spot it and they don't know how bad it is yet. She's going into hospital in September to have the lump removed and then she has to have radiation therapy for a while. I was so upset. I really didn't think it was going to be anything and now this happens. Not quite sure how I got home cos I was crying my eyes out most of the way back. Luckily my boss is very understanding so he didn't mind when I told him I needed to leave.

Now I think I have to go and get tested. I don't think they'll find anything bad but if this gene thing does turn up, that's gonna stress me out. The chances of it turning into cancer are slim but have to be increased now my sister has it. Going to see a doc tomorrow to find out what to do.

Freaked out.

:-(