BRACA testing

Hi Julia,

When I had my 'Genetic Testing' done i had it done through the 'Royal Hospital' in Brisbane. It was through the Public sector and my Oncologist recommended it and wrote to the hospital strongly advising I needed this to be done. I waited about 3 months or so for them to send me the questionairre and after I filled this out, waited about another 4 months or so to do the test. If I had paid myself i am sure it would have been a lot faster process. This test is quite costly I believe, so it was a welcome surprise to be able to have it done publically. I would like to make a point about this process. as far as having relatives living or passed to determine this type of testing should fall on any information available about any cancer in the family. If you have a relative that passed away but it was not determined whether they have any cancer at the time, this does not help not really knowing one way or the other. For instance, what if your Great Grand Mother had this disease but did not know due to ignorence to the condition? Or that they never tell their family about the disease before passing away? So this lack of useful  information where a relative might have had Breast or any other cancer determines the outcome of the process. Luckily for me my Mother's half sister (they shared the same Mum) gave me all the information I needed about her 'Ovarian Cancer' which is a closer link than actual BC for a common thread. My testing showed that I had no mutant genes so as far as it goes my cancer was environmental and not genetic. this is still not conclusive of course because they can't test all of the BRAC genes at this point in time unfortunately. So now I have to hope that I don't pass this on to my children in the future, and hopefully the testing of these genes becomes more acurate too!!!

Take care always and good luck with your journey XXX Mia.