A Time for Everything
First and foremost I would like to welcome you to my story. My name is Sarah and I am 31 years old who is also BRCA1 positive. For quite a while I have been gathering stones (more on that in a minute) in an effort to make the best possible decisions for my own situation. My goal is to share the knowledge and information I have gained in the hopes of helping other women, similar to me, find humor and comfort in their own journey.
Upon learning that I am BRCA1 positive and realizing that I face many difficult decisions when it comes to the future of my health and body, I sought comfort from my husband, my family and a few close friends. I also found comfort in a particular passage in the Bible, Ecclesiastes 3:1–8, A Time for Everything. These verses seemed to speak directly to my soul. I decided to use this passage as sort of an introduction to myself and provide some insight into my decision making process.
There is a time for everything, a time to be born and a time to die. I was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma and spent my entire childhood in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Obviously, I do not know when I’m going to die, or have any intention of dying soon, but I am no stranger to death, again, more on that later. A time to plant and a time to uproot. My husband and I have been married for about a year now and we currently live in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was a very difficult decision for me to uproot my life from Oklahoma City, but in doing so, I met my husband and now I am so thankful that I did.
There is a time to kill and a time to heal. To this I will say that the healing process has been a major factor in the decisions I have made up to this point. Obviously, I want to do everything the right way and reduce my risk of getting cancer as much as possible. But as I go into more details of the surgeries I have selected and decisions that have been made you will see that recovery time and the healing process definitely played a factor.
There is a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance. This is the part where I tell you how much cancer has affected my life. My mother was first diagnosed with breast cancer at 36. In 2006 she was confirmed as being BRCA1 positive. In 2008 she had a brand new occurrence and discovered that her cancer was triple-negative (known as TNBC, it does not contain genes with hormone receptors which makes it more difficult to treat). She immediately had a double mastectomy and hysterectomy. Unfortunately, those proactive steps were taken too late, and in 2010 she was diagnosed with stage 4 triple-negative breast cancer that metastasized through out her body. She died a year later at the age of 56. I mourn the loss of my mother, I weep for her. But I also remember how often she made me laugh.
There is a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them. I told you I would come back to that phrase. Throughout this entire process, I always felt like every article I read, every new piece of information I researched was another stone I was gathering that I could use to protect myself from this awful disease that I watched take my mother away from me. A time to search and a time to give up. I, like many women, refuse to give up when it comes to cancer. I will continue to search for new ideas, new information to help me in the decision making process.
There is a time to be silent and a time to speak. I have no desire to be silent on this issue. I want my story to be a resource for other women who are similar to me in that they are young, have never been diagnosed with cancer but want to learn more about BRCA, genetic testing and breast cancer. And if you have found that you are BRCA positive, I want to provide a safe place for those to learn from my experience and know that you are not alone.
I hope that wherever you are on your journey you will follow me and that my scattered stones might help you along the way.
