Genetics

 Up until now, all of my appointments have been within the same branch of hospitals and doctors as my primary doctor, and they've all happened relatively quickly. The genetic counselor is at a different hospital, and everything there is slow and unorganized. 

I'd been contacted pretty quickly about making an appointment, but I'd mistakenly thought the date was a week earlier. I think because the surgeon had given me a two week deadline, I assumed that this appointment would be scheduled earlier. So I showed up, ran around to several different offices who had no idea what was going on because their receptionist wasn't there, waited 20 minutes for a partially blind woman to check me in, only to find out that I'd come on the wrong day. 

When I showed up on the correct day, things were still slow, but at least there was a receptionist. She was being trained, but was nice and actually spoke to me, so I didn't mind as much. I'd been emailed some paperwork to fill out the week before about family history and genetic background, and I'd sent it back the next day, but they apparently hadn't gotten it, so I had to send it to the counselor again. They eventually found it in their spam folder and printed it out for him to look at while I was in the office meeting with him. He asked if I'd thought about what kind of surgery I wanted, and I told him I wasn't sure what I needed yet since I hadn't met with everyone yet. 

He went into more details about what different genetic strands could tell them about the cancer and how it would respond to treatment. The pathology results had finally come back, revealing that it isn't triple negative, and is only considered stage 1. He told me that the results would also tell them if I was more susceptible to different kind of cancers, which could lead to me needing more yearly cancer screenings, or possibly more surgeries. In the case of some cancer, like ovarian cancer, there isn't a good way to screen for it, so if I'm found to have a genetic strand that is likely to develop ovarian cancer, they may want to remove my ovaries and fallopian tubes. He was very interested in the fact that I have some Ashkenazi Jewish heritage, because I guess there are some very specific genetic mutations that are more prone to certain diseases. It's a very small part of my ancestry, and it's only from heresy not an actual genetic test, but it's still there. I'd be interested to know if they could tell me more about my ancestry from a blood test, but I doubt they would be looking into that kind of thing. I refuse to get a genetic test from the internet because those companies can keep and sell that information later. 

At the end of the appointment I got my blood drawn twice and was sent on my way.