Thank you for visiting my fundraising page.

Donating through this website is simple, fast and totally secure. It is also the most efficient way to support my fundraising efforts.

Many thanks for your support. READ on PLEASE

 "My TEN DOLLAR plea"

 

From the Talmud: Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.

 

 

Starting this Mother's day I am asking my family and friends to donate just ten dollars to FORCE, in memory of my sister Nancy Saturn and all the beautiful women, friends, sisters and mothers we have lost to breast and ovarian cancer. My sister raised well over a million dollars (AFTER she learned she had cancer!) to help open and support Glildas Club of Nashviile, a major cancer support agency in her community. What an inspiration!   I ask only that each of my friends donate just $10 for the organization I am involved with (and that Nancy was very excited about as well) that can save lives: FORCE.  If I can muster up 150 friends to do that, I will raise $1500 and will reach my goal and can spend the rest of my time helping others vs fundraising!      

 

MY STORY

 

My first husband Stephen Plotkin died of a rare lung cancer in 1990 when my daughters were ages 2 and 5.  In 1992, while still reeling from widowhood, I had a painful ovarian tumor the size of a canteloupe. It had to come out or it could rupture and take ME out, but luckily it was benign. My parents, my sister, and her family helped me care for my children while I was a working single doctor/mom. Unfortunately both my parents died within ten weeks of each other in 1993. In 1995 my only sister Nancy Saturn (my 'Rock') was diagnosed with breast cancer. Testing for the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene was then unkown, but it made news shortly after Nancy had her mastectomies. Jews of Eastern European (Ashkenazi) descent have three known  BRCA mutations unique to our ancestry. This explains why so many Jewish women have succumbed to breast and ovarian cancers.

 

  The BRCA genes are tumor suppressor genes, they make protein to repair damaged DNA. Damaged DNA can lead to cancer. If half of a gene pair is mutated, it leaves the other one of the pair more vulnerable to failure.  These BRCA mutations increase lifetime risk for breast and ovarian cancer about tenfold.  Every child whose parent carries the mutation has a 50/50 chance of carrying it as well. 

 

  Aside from my mother having breast cancer in her 70's, there was just one known cousin in my father's large family (he was one of eight sibs) with known breast cancer. I used to think it was only early (premonpausal) breast cancers that were linked to this gene, but now genetic researchers are starting to notice histories of later onset cancers as well.  Nancy tested positive back in 1997, so she urged me to test for the same mutation.  I had it too, as we feared.   In 1999, after finally juggling my work schedule, and with my new husband Matt Breyer's loving support, I made the decision to have prophylactic mastectomies and oophorectomy.  I had two stages of surgery, six months apart.  I already had been widowed due to cancer when I was only 36.  I learned of my own cancer risk at age 46.  Matt, my new husband, had lost his own mother to breast cancer when she was far too young, so we both knew how bad things might get.  There was no way my daughters, who were then 11 and 14, were going to have a chance of losing me early!  I was not going to sit around waiting as my chance for cancer increased each year. If it meant losing my natural breasts and starting menopause early, so be it!  I had a genetic counselor, but there was NO ONE I could find anywhere back then who was in my shoes, no one to talk to or email about how felt or what to do next. I did have my family support, and my sister urging me to do the surgery and thus avoid her fate of cancer. My children were too young to understand why I was going through the surgery, but they knew their Aunt Nancy had cancer and I did tell them it was to prevent similar cancer.

 

My sense of relief after the surgery was beyond what I can ever describe.  Surgery seems drastic, and some just opt for more frequent screening hoping to catch cancers earlier, but that was not reassuring enough for me. I told my genetic counselor that others may call me if they need to talk with someone, and indeed I quietly shared my story with others who carried the gene, and most of them also decided on preventive surgeries. I set up many meetings in coffee shops with total strangers (referred to me) who had a similar genetic risk and did not know where to turn.

 

My sister did well after her mastectomies, for 14 years. She even helped care for me in September of 2009 when I had to have my breast reconstruction revised due to ruptured implants.  Nancy's husband Alan died in May 2009 after battling Multiple Myeloma for five years.   Nancys breast cancer had already recurred in her thorax, but was kept at bay with with oral chemotherapy for almost two years.  Then, in late 2009, after a wonderful trip to Israel with some of her children and grandchildren, she became very dizzy, and we learned the cancer went to her brain lining. Radiation bought her a little time, but there was no way to keep the cancer from growing. She died in March 2010 at age 67, with her family at her side.  Nancy may very well have saved my life. My sister had three adult daughters, all who now have been tested. One tested positive, and has already had surgery similar to mine. We are fellow 'mutants' but our lives go on. We are both grateful that we were informed enough to make decisons that may have spared us from two types of cancer.  We recently learned that a male cousin on our mother's side with pancreatic cancer has our very same mutation so we are narrowing down the genetic puzzle in our family. I have yearly skin checks for skin cancer (melanoma is more common with my mutation) and I am also hoping to enter a study to help determine the best way to detect changes in the pancreas BEFORE they might become cancerous. It is not a 'done deal' that I will get pancreatic cancer but my risk is still higher than normal.

 

Working with FORCE is my way to 'pay it forward' and help others navigate the complex and sometimes overwhelming decison tree they face once they hear about their BRCA mutation. If only FORCE had been around when I had these monumental decisions!

Now it is, and thus I volunteer as an outreach coordinator for the recently formed local chapter of FACING OUR RISK OF CANCER EMPOWERED in Indianapolis, Indiana. We are entirely volunteers locally, and are part of a national organization started by Sue Friedman, who found she had breast cancer at age 33 and learned of her genetic risk at age 35.  Now, for the sixth year, there is a phenomenal national conference and we give grants for participants who cannot afford to attend. We need monies for upkeep of an elaborate message/help board, helpline, webinars, web support, volunteer training, as well as informative brochures we distribute to doctors, clinics, patients, and genetic counselors. If you know of such people tell them they not alone, we are here for them!

 

This summer Matt and I will hike 11 days on Tour du Mont Blanc in the Alps, and I dediciate my hike to Nancy and ALL the friends and members of our family, and others all over the world, who died WAY too young, from cancer. We are so lucky to be able to make this trip. Nancy no doubt would have come with us, for she loved hiking in pretty places!  

 

 

Thanks you for taking the time to read this. Now, just ten dollars? Thanks.