Jennifer Panaro

By Previve on November 20, 2010 | Category: Previvor Stories | 4 Comments

This is my story…About ten years ago I was watching one of the morning news shows and there was a mother and daughter being interviewed because they carried the breast cancer gene.  The daughter was in her early twenties and she had undergone a prophylactic bilateral mastectomy.  I watched in horror because I couldn’t believe that anyone would ever remove their healthy breasts even though they didn’t have cancer.

Flash forward ten years… I am now 36 years old and BRCA 1 positive.  Five months ago I had my ovaries and fallopian tubes removed. Eleven weeks ago I had a prophylactic bilateral mastectomy.  My grandmother died at the age of 40 from breast cancer and her twin sister died at 41 from ovarian cancer.  My grandmother had six children: five girls and one boy and up until recently none of them have ever had cancer.

In January 2010 my 43 year old aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer.  She was tested for the breast cancer gene and her test came back BRCA 1 positive.  Subsequently all of the other sisters were tested.  Two were lucky enough to come back negative, and ironically enough, one of the sisters that tested negative had already had a double mastectomy over 25 years prior because of cystic fibroid tumors.  Two more sisters tested positive, including my mother, resulting in three siblings so far that have the BRCA 1 gene.

After my mother found out she was positive I immediately went and got tested.  In March of 2010 I found out I was BRCA 1 positive.  I was devastated and I had no idea what I was going to do.  After speaking with a lot of doctors and doing a lot of research on my own I decided to have my healthy ovaries and breasts removed.  This was probably the hardest decision I have ever had to make.  The decision to have the double mastectomy came a little easier for me, but the decision to have my ovaries removed was agonizing.  I am divorced and have no children and having my ovaries removed would mean I would never be able to have children of my own.

After a lot of thought I decided that having my ovaries removed was the best decision for me.  On May 20, 2010 I had my ovaries and fallopian tubes removed and on July 27 I traveled from my home in Charlotte to New Orleans to have my double mastectomy.  When I woke up from my surgery I had never felt such relief and I was just a happier person, I felt like I had cheated death.

I leave in 3 weeks for New Orleans so I can have my second stage reconstruction surgery and I can’t wait!  I am so glad that I made this decision, I feel like I was given the gift of knowledge and I have no regrets.  Pretty soon I will be able to put this all behind me.  I only hope that I am able to help women out there who may be struggling with having to make the same decisions that I had to make.  I am proud to say that I am a previvor.