Views and things on my mind

The article was called “Cancer Runs in Families. Too Few Are Getting Tested.”

by Brianna Abbott:

Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider knew what her father’s pancreatic cancer diagnosis meant for his future. She didn’t realize what it meant for her own cancer risk. 

Steven Ungerleider’s doctors ordered genetic testing in 2022 to see if his cancer might respond to a new treatment. They found he had a mutation in the BRCA2 gene, which raises risks for cancers including pancreatic, breast and ovarian—and can be passed from parents to children

Ungerleider and her sister got tested and discovered they had the same mutation

“I had no idea that this was possible for me,” said Ungerleider, 43, an internal medicine doctor and founder of End Well, a nonprofit focused on end-of-life care. 

Doctors are recommending genetic tests to more cancer patients and their families. Testing costs have droppedand the results are helping doctors choose newer targeted drugs and encourage relatives to confront their own cancer risk. 

“We can test you for dozens of genes at the same time, and it’s going to influence your treatment,” said Dr. Jewel Samadder, co-leader of the Office of Precision Medicine at the Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center in Phoenix.

Here’s more from the article:

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What are your thoughts about cancer running in families? Would you get tested if your parents or siblings had cancer? Would you recommend friends to have testing done?

It’s Friday!

Olive blocked me from packing on my way out of town.

Whenever I get my suitcase out, Olive jumps in. She does’t like it when I’m gone. Usually it means she gets boarded. When we left for a week at Christmas, we took her to a new boarding place. The one she had been to before and was kind of used to went out of business. The last place was brand new and had three-story cat condos with holes to climb through to the different levels. The top floor had a TV.

Olive freaked out. I got calls that she wasn’t eating, drinking water which meant her other bodily functions weren’t happening.

Eventually they moved her into a storage closet, away from the other cats. That settled her down.

In Olive’s mind, when the suitcase comes out, something bad will happen.

Olive wasn’t taking any chances. She slept in the suitcase for hours.

Today I’m headed home to my husband and Olive. Thank you for helping me through my week!

What are your plans for this weekend?