- By Carin Espenschied
- Posted June 22, 2016
Decisions, Decisions: What To Consider When Deciding On Risk Reducing Surgery
If you have been diagnosed with an inherited colorectal cancer syndrome, your healthcare provider may have recommended that you consider having risk reducing surgery. Risk reducing colectomy is the removal of part (partial colectomy) or all (total colectomy) of the colon to reduce the risk of developing future cancer. Risk reducing hysterectomy…
- By Georgia Hurst
- Posted June 20, 2016
Approaching Surgical Decisions as a Previvor of a Hereditary Colon Cancer Syndrome
With the increase in genetic testing for hereditary cancer syndromes, many women, especially those under the age of 50, are undergoing prophylactic surgeries in order to prevent cancer. While the surgeries may drastically reduce one’s chances of developing cancer to a particular area or organ, these surgeries are not to be minimized as they may…
- By Bill Rotter
- Posted June 16, 2016
A Cancer Related Story of a Man's Best Friend
Only weeks after I completed all of my treatments for breast cancer in the fall of 2014, my wife and I decided to get a dog to replace the one we had to put down the previous April for medical reasons. We had always had dogs in our family and we felt the void of not having one. We decided on a rescue dog and not a puppy as we both worked and knew…
- By Dr. Dennis J Ahnen
- Posted June 15, 2016
Why is Increased Screening Recommended In Hereditary Colorectal Cancer Syndromes? Why is it Important and What Screening Can Be Done?
You may have wondered why cancer-screening recommendations for individuals with a known hereditary colorectal cancer(CRC) syndrome are so much different than those recommended for individuals with no strong family history of cancer. Compared to average-risk screening, the recommendations for cancer screening in the hereditary CRC syndromes are…
- By Eve Mart
- Posted June 14, 2016
What is the 'New Normal'?
What is the new normal after you've been diagnosed with cancer and spent a year of your life, if not more, going through treatment and you've come out on the other side a little worse for the wear, but alive and seemingly in tact? Often you talk in clichés or read something that resonates and repeat it to yourself almost like a mantra: "What doesn't…
- By Travis Bray
- Posted June 13, 2016
Is it THAT Time of Year, Again?!?
Pity is usually available only in short supply in my family. We’re very much a “Life’s hard…wear a helmet” group of people. That’s not to say that we don’t care for each other, because we definitely do. We just don’t see any point in sitting on the ground, looking at a skinned elbow, and lamenting the fact that we fell. My mom used…
- By Carin Espenschied
- Posted June 8, 2016
What Happens When I Get My Test Results
Learning the results of genetic testing can be a stressful experience for some, but it also has the potential to be empowering. If you are waiting for your genetic test results to come back or are considering having genetic testing in the future, hopefully the information in this blog will ease some of the concern you may be experiencing. I hope…
- By David Dubin
- Posted June 7, 2016
Half Full
Receiving genetic test results is never an easy process. It’s human nature to be concerned about the unexpected, especially when it can affect your future so significantly. When I had genetic testing back in 2007, it was almost a formality. I had coloncancer twice already, by the time I had genetic testing, my family history of colon cancer in…
- By Georgia Hurst
- Posted June 6, 2016
The Importance of Genetic Counseling With Genetic Testing
As I sit in the hereditary cancer trenches, I see the negative effects of genetic testing sans certified genetic counseling every single day – and it is an enormous problem. Many of the fears and concerns that people discuss with me could be addressed and ameliorated simply if they spoke with a certified genetic counselor before and…
- By Jessica Profato, MS, CGC
- Posted June 6, 2016
What Do Genetic Counselors Do?
My name is Jessica Profato-Partlow. I am a relatively new member of the Ambry Genetics family, and very excited to be a part of our hereditary cancer patient website. As a clinical genetic counselor prior to joining Ambry, I spent several years providing hereditarycancer genetic counseling services to many families at a busy cancer hospital. In…