I know this isn't a logical emotion, I know I cannot control the health or happenchance for my friends or my family. But today, I feel guilty. I feel guilty for being healthy. I feel guilty for having the opportunity to use genetic testing to find out my real risk, when so many other genetic cancers do not have access to the same technology.
In the aftermath of my own very good news (BRCA neg), I have learned that a dear friend of mine has Cervical Cancer. Her family's history with cancer looks like what many BRCA pos women experience, mothers, grandmothers, aunts all plagued by the same disease. So here she is 29, and headed in for a biopsy tomorrow. A biopsy who's results could change her entire life, it will determine if she will ever be able to bear children or not, it will determine how much of her cervix they have to remove in order to get the cancer out. The good news is she shouldn't have to undergo chemo, or radiation. Just the surgery.
So today, I feel guilty. I feel guilty for having the opportunity to celebrate the known risk of my life, when so few others in similar positions have the same opportunity.
