#10 from previous journal

Well, we had our appointment with the genetic counselor at the cancer institute today. I really didn't get any new information, except that insurance will not pay for the genetic tessting. That was bad news because I was hoping they would pay for it, but you know how insurance goes. But the good news is that the testing is not nearly as expensive as we thought it would be originally. So, we are probably going to get it done so that we can be reassured. The testing constists of a simple blood test, then it will be sent off to a lab either in Maryland, Boston, or Pennsylvania (whichever one knows the most about this disease). It will take about a month to do the test, and it consists of two parts. They look for the mutated gene in the first part of the testing, then if it comes back negative, they have to do a second test to make sure thats it is negative. If the first test comes back positive, then there is no need for the second part of the test. I am waiting for the genetic counselor to call me back with the information on which testing center I should use, then we can make the appointment to get my blood taken and sent off. The benifits of having the test done are that I will be reassured if I do not have the disease, because then it can not be passed on to my children. And I won't have any reason to continue with the screenings that I have to have done to look for tumors. It will also tell me if I do have the disease, and then the cancer institute will set me up with a specialist to follow my case so that we can catch tumors early enough before they cause problems. So that's the story for now. I will update when I know more. Everything has still been going great with the pregnancy. My next OB appointment is April 3rd. I will update soon!