My story begins in 1949 when my grandmother (Dad's Mom) was diagnosis with breast cancer. Two of her sisters had just died of breast cancer. Cancer was still at that time a word that was spoken in a whisper, not said out loud. She had a mass mastectomy in the spring but died on Christmas morning, my dad being 13 years old. We always knew that breast cancer ran in our family but were never worried about it as Breast Cancer doesn't come from the fathers side of the family or so that is what my doctor said in the 80's. NOT TRUE. This past Christmas 2008 my 39 year old sister the youngest of the 3 girls, 6 kids called to say she has breast cancer, her youngest child being 6 years old. Her doctor order her a BRAC Gene test to see if she carries the breast cancer gene. Well, she got the results back and she did. She has now had a double mastectomy and is doing chemo, the last treatment is this weekend June 17, 2009, Fathers day weekend and then she will have a hysterectomy in about 8 weeks due to her being a BRAC1 gene carrier. Everyone said that I need to have the BRAC test done I didn't want to do the test, I wasn't for sure if I was strong enough to handle the results if it came back positive. I did and found out that mine was negative. It was a bittersweet day telling my sister that I had tested negative when she had tested positive and was going thru all of this. She is the bravest person I know she has kept a positive attitude she has held her head up even with no hair on it. Love you Sandie!!!

Patti Larkin
York, SC