By Lizzie Stark TODAYShow.com contributor updated 12:53 p.m. CT, Mon., Oct . 19, 2009
It took a few tablespoons of my blood, a six-week wait to determine the results and only an instant to change my world.
“I’m afraid I have bad news,” my oncologist said.
Even though I’m a healthy 27-year-old woman right now, I'm going to have both my breasts removed as a preventive measure because I’m a member of a very exclusive club: Like one out of 1,000 women, I have a genetic mutation that dramatically ups my chance of cancer. My gene — called the BRCA1 gene — gives me a 40 percent to 85 percent lifetime risk of developing breast cancer, and a risk of ovarian cancer that is 30 to 70 percent higher than women who do not have this gene, according to the Mayo Clinic.
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