Being BRCA brave: My flat and fabulous life
Diedre Nilmeier
May 8, 2019
When I was 28, I found out my aunt had breast cancer and I learned about something called the BRCA1 genetic mutation.
“Tell the story of the mountain you climbed. Your words could become a page in someone else’s survival guide.” — Morgan Harper Nichols
When I was 28, I found out my aunt had breast cancer and I learned about something called the BRCA1 genetic mutation.
Normally, I am pro “do whatever you want with your body,” but for this topic, I’m so biased to my personal opinion that preventative is the answer.
Making such permanent decisions, especially in your twenties, can be overwhelming and scary.
I’m a planner and tomorrow I don’t have a plan because I don’t know what it will look like for me.
While planning a bra-fitting meetup for my Young Survival Coalition support group, I was reminded of the pile of useless underthings stuffed in my bottom drawer.
My doctors never mentioned I was high risk because my mother received her initial diagnosis in her late fifties.
When you get cancer you think your life is over but for me my life has begun. I have cancer cancer doesn’t have me!
With only a one in five chance of surviving beyond five years, I’m so blessed to still be here thriving, 15 years after my initial diagnosis.
It was after I started chemotherapy, that I was at home one day healing from the treatment and I realized I was thankful.
Even on days when I didn’t feel like fighting, I have to because I had my son to live for.