Summer Happenings & Awaiting Genetic Testing

Hilo's American Cancer Society's Relay for Life was on July 19, a few days after my 40th birthday! Cancer survivors were treated to a nice dinner before the survivors' lap around the baseball stadium. Kailee & I hung out til about 9 pm, while my sister-in-law Ellen stayed til about 2 am. It was great to see the community support for this event, from various non-profits, candidates for public office, local businesses, family groups, government agencies & other medical groups. I hope to celebrate many more birthdays! Unfortunately, I heard that the economics teacher, Anson Chong, who Pete & met at last year's survivors' dinner, passed away before this event. In June, he had a community celebration before his passing, honoring his leadership & many contributions & achievements, both internationally & locally.

I've been following Pete's nephew's condition via his mother's postings at his Caring Bridge site:
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/ericitokazu Chemo can just knock you out! I can't imagine dealing with cancer at such a young age, but Eric is an amazing boy & his parents are too!

Last Tuesday, I finally went for my blood draw at Kaiser to comprehensively test for the BRCA gene mutation (full sequence & large rearrangement analysis of BRCA1 & 2). Although I don't know of any close female relatives w/breast cancer, the diagnosis at an early age (before age 40 or even 50), was a high enough risk factor to allow me to have this extremely expensive test (valued at about $3,000, for my regular lab fee of $15). Since the mutations can be inherited from either my mom's or father's side (which I have more limited info since my dad's mother died relatively young from a stroke), I thought I'd go ahead with knowing my status since I have 2 sisters who could also be at risk. The genetics counselor thinks I'm at a very low risk for the mutation though, but I'll need to wait for about 6-8 weeks since it's such a complex test...