Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Me and My "Variant of Unknown Significance"

I got my BRCA test results from Color Genomics and lo! I am negative. Hurrah, hurrah--the breast cancer I spent the year pulverizing (or my doctors did) had, apparently, no genetic origin but was "sporadic." Any old thing started it--being a mother at a late age, eating chocolate, drinking red wine, boiling my water in a plastic water heater--who knows. At any rate, I'm not genetically programmed to develop cancers, which means my twelve-year-old daughter is safer than she would have been if I'd tested positive. 
Except for one little thing. I did test positive for a "Variant of Unknown Significance," (aka "VUS") which is exactly what it sounds like: a genetic change about which nobody knows anything. "Most" of them are "harmless" but actually nobody knows what the heck they mean so let us assure you that if we find something bad we'll "try to contact you."
La de dahhhh. I'll go right back to eating chocolate, drinking read wine, and enjoying my husband and kids. A relative of mine tested positive for an ailment and freaked enough to have a device implanted surgically to prevent
 . . . whatever. Something that probably won't happen. They'd have to wrestle me to the table to implant anything in me if I weren't feeling sick. 
That's the trouble with genetic testing. These tests are great if you just want to know. But if you're the nervous type, you're probably better off with your blissful, or at least speculative, ignorance.

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