FORCE

This week I decided to take advantage of an amazing tool for those of us with questions about genetic mutations and more specifically the BRCA mutations. I have mentioned before the website http://www.facingourrisk.org/. FORCE, Facing Our Risk of Cancer Empowered, is an information filled website with amazing message boards. You can at any time ask questions of your own, read posts of others, or reply to posts. This week I decided to ask a question.

When to have an oophorectomy, or have my ovaries removed. Most of the recommendations for women with BRCA mutations is to remove the ovaries, but when exactly. There seems to be a wide variation of answers given to this question. The sooner the better is usually always implied. Is there a too soon though? After posting my question I received several replies from women who are looking at the same information I am. They are asking their doctors the same questions, and in most cases getting similar answers. What is important to understand is that prevention of breast and ovarian cancer is a fairly new thought process. Studies are being done, but the information from those studies is far from compiled and ready to be released. So, doctors, patients and researchers are all in the same boat. We just don't know everything there is to know about how early prevention can and will affect us 10, 15, 20 or more years down the road.

I am proud to be a part of this prevention mindset, and I know that the women who participate on the FORCE website are as well. We are the daughters, grand-daughters, nieces, and sisters of a generation who did not have the options we do now. I hope that 10, 15, 20 and more years from now the developments that can and will be made will give my little Taylor options that I do not have now.

Back to FORCE, these women are asking questions and making the best decisions they can with the information that is available today. I started my research on prevention in January, many of these women have been at it much longer than me. In my mind I would be a fool not to utilize their minds. Even more than that, everyone needs someone else to re-affirm life changing decisions. Many of the people in our day to day lives are still in shock by what we are going through. Instead of bombarding those who are overwhelmed with us right now, we have another support group at our fingertips.

I am so pumped about trying to make a difference through this whole experience. At times I get frustrated because I do not feel like I am reaching all that many people. This last week with the newspaper article and opening up through FORCE, I have a renewed vigor to stand fast in my determination. I have got to be patient, but I know that God is using me. Knowing that is enough in my mind.