43 www.ReadMPM.com | www.MountPleasantMagazine.com | www.MountPleasantPodcast.com BY: KATIE FINCH Knowing Your Risk And deciding what comes next Knowledge is powerful. Knowing the answer on a test. Knowing the password to your bank account. Knowing the best route to get to work on time. There’s no denying that knowledge is often a gift. But what happens when you’re given knowledge pertaining to your health that potentially changes the trajectory of your future? Is it a gift or a burden? In this case, we’re discussing genetic testing for the predisposition to breast cancer: the BRCA gene. Identifying risk years before cancer develops and giving women choices well beyond their family history. For Jennifer Hicks, Brooke Cribbs and Dawn Burns, knowledge of an inherited cancer risk didn’t immediately feel like a gift or even an answer. Instead, it created questions about surgery, their futures and what level of risk they were willing to live with. “It felt like being given a heavy weight to carry,” reflected Burns. Each woman shared a different story of how carrying this hereditary gene ultimately led to their decision to opt for a risk-reducing double mastectomy. Their stories certainly aren’t an argument for you to make the same choice, but our Brooke Cribbs. Dawn Burns. Jenny Hicks.
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