BRCA JOURNAL: CHAPTER TWO

When I told my dad, I got the "WHAT?!” reaction I'd been expecting. At first, he thought I was being impetuous out of panic. But we spent some time talking. I told him about the doctors I had already seen and the ones I was scheduled to meet. I explained that I certainly didn’t want to have a mastectomy, but felt it was a reasonable option considering my risks. “Well, what exactly are the risks?” he asked. When I explained that my risk of breast cancer could be as high as 87%, there was a long silence as the words sunk in. I knew he was upset. He had stood by my mother’s side during her grueling fight with cancer, but he just couldn’t agree that it was a good idea to have surgery when I was perfectly healthy. He asked me, “Can’t they just screen you? I thought you were having MRIs done.” “Yes," I said, "I could just continue with my screening, but after much soul-searching, I have decided that I am not comfortable with that option because I don’t want to ‘catch’ cancer, I want to avoid it.” He then said what many others have said to me when they heard what I was considering: "But if you wait five years, they'll probably have something for you . . ."

I had to remind him of my reality. “Five years from now, I will be forty. Mom didn’t make it to forty. If I don’t live another five years, then all the science in the world isn’t going to help me one bit.” Not even the lawyer in him could argue that point. We have had many more conversations on the topic since then, and I am glad that I let him (and others over time) in on my plans so that they wouldn’t come as a shock.

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Michelle McBride lives in Chicago with her husband and three children. Michelle has helped make SU2C a reality and been instrumental in aligning SU2C with MLB. She sits on the boards of two cancer research foundations: Little Heroes, and Noreen Fraser Foundation. Michelle dedicates this piece to her husband and three kids.