Living With a BRCA2 Mutation: Marleah’s Story

A personal story from CDC's Bring Your Brave campaign on breast cancer in young women.

Marleah has a family history of breast cancer: her mother was diagnosed with it. At 25, she learned through genetic testing that she carries a BRCA2 gene mutation, which raises her risk of breast cancer.

What the result meant

The test gave her information to make decisions about her health — and a new set of decisions to make, right away:

• getting her first breast cancer screening at a young age;
• talking with her doctor about her options, from risk-reducing surgery to more frequent screening;
• starting conversations about family planning.

For now, she manages her risk with frequent screenings rather than surgery to prevent breast and ovarian cancer. As she puts it, knowing your risk is just the beginning.

Learning to live with uncertainty

A positive result tells you about your risk today, Marleah says, but then you have to learn to cope with that knowledge — and to keep making decisions. For the past decade she has worked at accepting an uncertain future. Living with a higher hereditary cancer risk, she has found, takes ongoing medical, emotional and practical support and effort; accepting that helps her think long-term.

She waited to be tested until she felt ready. Since then, she has learned to expect uncertainty. She now knows what to expect at her screenings and feels more mentally prepared, so they make her less anxious. The feelings don't disappear, she says, but they become more manageable.

Milestones

Marleah is nearing the age her mother was when she was diagnosed, and her son is now the age Marleah was then. Looking back on the decade, she is proud of herself. Her family history also led her to a career advocating for herself and other people at high risk; she tells her story in a CDC video.

Her advice: give yourself grace

To other "previvors" like her, Marleah says managing that risk is a lifetime of work, and you have to give yourself grace. "I am making the best decisions I can with the information I have at that time," she says; with new information, you might decide differently, and that's all right.

Sources

Based on "Personal Story: Marleah," Bring Your Brave, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; a work of the United States government in the public domain.