The Day I Learned I Am a Mutant

And how I’m learning to cope with that.

I loved the X-Men cartoon when I was a kid. Loved it. Loved it, as in I watched it every Saturday morning with my brother, even though I had the distinct feeling that as a girl, I somehow wasn’t supposed to. Loved it, as in I had the trading cards. Loved it, as in when the wind would pick up and I found myself alone at the school yard, I would throw my bike down, sprint across the playground and up the winding staircase to the top of the structure, where I would then thrust my tiny arms into the air, roll my eyes back into their sockets, and declare triumphantly to the eucalyptus trees chattering around me, “I am STORM! WIND: GO!”

I pretended that I, alone, controlled the elements, exerting my dominance over them and using them for good. That show and its mutants made me feel powerful.

Somehow my hair never looked as good as hers though.

More than twenty years later I got the call: I really was a mutant, and no, it didn’t come with really cool superpowers. I had the BRAC1 mutation, and I suddenly felt powerless.

I knew it was coming. I’d just spent the summer watching my mother go through the ups (can you really call them ups?) and downs of breast cancer, and after her diagnosis tipped our cancer count to 7/10 family members, her oncologist finally put 7 and 10 together and called for genetic testing.

Turns out our Norwegian lineage didn’t just give me my hard-to-spell name; it also gave us hard-to-beat odds of getting cancer: 87%, to be exact.

With odds like that, something something Vegas. <the crowd roars with appreciative laughter at the comedic relief>

And despite my 50% chance against that 87%, I did (as the oncologist told me in his best comforting Doctor Voice®) inherit the gene, and I now faced the very real possibility — nay, near guarantee that I, too, would get the big C. …If not once, twice. Even thrice. Perhaps even four times, since fourice isn’t a real word. (What the fuck, Shakespeare. Could you not count past three? Get it together. Clearly you had the luxury of not inheriting the BRAC1 gene and needing to inventory its myriad cancer risks.)

Because yes, not only was I almost resolutely assured of getting breast cancer in one of my two sweater muffins, it meant my other muffin was likely to get it later down the road, too. And then there’s the 40% risk of ovarian cancer. And the increased risk of melanoma. And hey, you know what? Uterine cancer, come oooon doooown! You’re the next contestant on The Cancer is Rife! It’s no wonder that the cancer count in my family seems to outnumber actual family members.

Okay, fine. You can come on down, too, Rob.

But despite this very grave revelation, a funny thing happened when I got the news. I had my breaking-down sobs, sure. I called my mom, my boyfriend, my dad, my best friends, all in a blur that makes it hard to remember the order of who got the news first. I hugged the pink ovary+fallopian tubes plushy one of my closest friends got me weeks earlier when I first found out that I might have the gene. (Thanks, Natalie. ❤ ) I worried about my future, my life with my TBD husband, the kids that may never be. I worried about the hole that would be left inside me, metaphorically and literally, when I was forced to rip out my ovaries and uterus. It was terrifying and devastating.

But then I heaved out a sigh, and I accepted it. And then, to my surprise, I felt grateful. And then? I felt strong. I felt…relief. I was a mutant, and I really was powerful.

Because I realized that while I can’t control the changing winds, like I dreamed of doing as a child, I can control what I do with this new information. I can educate myself. I can eat better. Exercise more. Use this an excuse to move to one of the Blue Zones and live out my days surfing in Costa Rica, or meditating with cats in Japan.

Or combine them both and surf with cats, like this dude. Living the dream, man.

Now I know and now I can do something about it. So much of the worst of cancer comes when you find out too late, but at this point, being proactive about cancer screenings it just part of my health maintenance. I have a yearly visit to the oncologist. MRIs every three years. Monthly at-home breast exams LIKE ALL OF US SHOULD BE DOING ANYWAY. All of this…it’s just what I do now. And it’s okay.

Knowing how likely it is that any one of us could get cancer, the fact that I know now that I am almost guaranteed to, and I will be very regularly and thoroughly screened for it — well, I rationalized with myself, doesn’t that actually decrease my mortality rate compared to the average person? Sure, I have a higher than average risk of getting cancer. But compared to the general population, maybe now with this information, I actually have a higher than average chance of successfully beating it. Early detection is key. And I have all the tools to catch it. It’s like I just showed up with an unfair advantage against the rest of you suckers. This is Supermarket Sweep, baby. I’m Team 1. And I’m going straight for those motherfuckin’ turkeys.

Don’t forget the giant blocks of cheese and olive oil!

Besides, in all likelihood, for me, given my family history, and this type of mutation, I won’t be affected by this for another twenty years, if at all. By then I will have had kids and lived a long, and super sexy life. And my boobs will probably be down to my knees by then anyway. Having a prophylactic double mastectomy, oophorectomy, and hysterectomy might not be a big deal.

Moreover, having a prophylactic double mastectomy, oophorectomy, and hysterectomy might not even be necessary. So much happens within science in ten years, let alone 20. We might have new procedures, new therapies — hell, even a cure! We might look back at this era and shake our heads at how absolutely barbaric it was that we once recommended women lop off their breasts and cut out their reproductive system just to increase their chance of living. It seems absurd even writing it out now.

So for now, I hug my plushy ovaries. I give thanks for the healthy years I still have ahead of me. I warm up to the idea of seeing my oncologist more often than I see my bestie across the country, as much as I’d like that to be different. I appreciate the family and friends who surrounded me with love, resources, and encouraging words as this hurricane moved in. They may not be mutants like me, but they are superheroes in their own right. And I continue to be grateful that there are things that I can dictate, and that in the face of this storm maybe, just maybe, I can still control the wind.