A mother-of-three, who found out that she was carrying a gene that gave her a higher risk of acquiring cancer, opted to have her breasts and ovaries removed. She said she chose to do so because she wants to see her children grow up.
Georgina Tuson, a 38-year-old mother from Fareham, Hampshire, shared to the Mirror that she was stunned when she was told by her parents that she was a carrier of a gene that gave her a high chance of developing cancer. The doctors at the Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth explained to her that she had a 60-percent chance of acquiring ovarian cancer and a 90-percent chance of developing breast cancer.
"My aunt died 20 years ago of breast cancer, and then 18 years later my cousin discovered that she had cancer in both of her breasts so had a mastectomy to have them removed," Tuson narrated. "I couldn't believe it when I discovered that myself, my father and brother also carried the gene."
Tuson, who has a son and two young daughters, said she was worried about her children's future if she would suffer cancer. She talked to a doctor and she was informed that the best thing to do is to undergo both a mastectomy and hysterectomy.
"I didn't want to take any chances. I wanted to see my children grow up, get married and have children themselves, and more importantly the odds were high that my daughters may too, one day, suffer the same fate as I was," Tuson expressed. She is now recovering seven months after the operations that removed her breasts and ovaries.
Although she also feared that her children might carry the same gene, she said that at least, she will be around to help them get through with it. "Know that should my fate end up their fate, then they will handle it just as I did, and together we will get through it as I'm alive to now help them with whatever they face later in life," she stated.
According to the National Cancer Institute, a person who has a BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutation has a higher chance of developing breast and ovarian cancer. This threatening BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation could be inherited from a person's mother or father. A parent who carries a mutation has a 50 percent chance of passing the gene to at least one of his or her children.
