Gambling with Cancer / BRCA1

I had a dear friend put his arm around me one day and ask me, "Are you sure you really need to do this?"

My response was calm and simple. First I realized he most likely has not visited my blog and read about what this meant for me or about how I came to conclusion that having the preventative surgery was something I was very SURE about. But I decided to break it down in man speak for him....

I simply asked him this...

If I told you the airplane you were flying out had an 87% chance of crashing...but of course there is still that 13% chance it would make it to it's destination ...would you take it? His response was, "No way!"

Now if I told you we had another airplane with a 95% chance of getting safely to it's destination, would you take it. He said, "Absolutely!" I explained that this was just what I was faced with and I liked the odds of reducing my risk of getting cancer over my lifetime to about 5%...lower then your average woman my age.

 
And if you've been reading my blog you know I have an approximately 87% chance of developing breast cancer, in which led me to the decision to have my prophylactic double mastectomy and reconstruction. This option allows me to strike first, have the surgery I'd have to have any way and skip the chemo and radiation.

I loved this example of "gambling with cancer" I read somewhere and saved to share here on the blog (sorry forgot where it was from). "If someone responded with a comment about there being a 13% chance I wouldn't get cancer....I asked them if they would gamble $1000 if they had an 87% chance of winning, every single person said yes. Then I asked if they would still gamble with a 13% chance of winning...they all said no. So I said, I'm not willing to gamble with an 87% risk that something bad is going to be the result. If I had an 87% chance of winning the lottery, I'd be buying a large stack of tickets, but this ain't the kind of lottery I want to win."