RE: A final thought on CML running in families

[Guest guest]

Hello Barb'

To add to your final thought and comment below I would like to share my

first time experience @ my ONC's office.

First I have to tell you I had no idea why I was there. My primary Dr. was

out of town and his nurse practitioner who I visited because of pain in my

left arm acted very quickly and aggressively when she noticed my weight loss

that occurred in past year and a bruise on my arm. She later told me she

just noticed other things about my appearance that I would have just

contributed to being overworked.

Anyway, while visting my ONC the first time I had to fill out forms

regarding my family history- Fathers side and mothers. (Still I had no clue

what an Oncologist even was)

I literally had to ask for a second sheet because my mothers has 8 siblings

who had or has cancer(my mother is not one of the 8) Also note that their

father also died from cancer.

However, none of them had the same type of cancer.

After being diagnosed one of the first things I asked was " is it possible

that this is genetic? And my Oncologist explained that to date there is no

evidence to support that there is any hereditary link and he didn't think

so. But his next question was to ask where I grew up and what type of

environment was it? Were there any large chemical plants or was it a large

industrial area that used different types of chemicals and did my mothers

siblings all grow up in the same area?

The answer is yes to everything he asked. The small city I grew up in was

full of different types of factories then and when my mother and her

siblings were growing up. It was only in the 90's that most of these large

companies moved South.

I moved to Florida in 1992 but an added concern for me was that when I moved

here I took a job working in a large company where I was exposed daily to

benzene and other chemicals. I only wish I had known the affects of being

exposed to benzene then...

Do I believe that environmental factors had something to do with my family

history of cancer? Yes.

I also believe that being exposed to the chemicals may have caused my CML

but that leaves one to wonder why everyone doesn't acquire it when being

exposed to such chemicals and could my environmental exposure have changed

my immune system to be more susceptible to cancer in general?

To date there is only one of my mother's sibling's children that have been

Diagnosed with cancer and again it is a total different cancer then any of

the rest.

The most important factor of all of this for me is " I hope they never do

find it to be genetic so that my children and grandchildren never have to

worry about getting it because I passed on the bad chromosomes.

Take care all...

ez

Dx 5-2000 age 35

Hydrea, interferon, ARC

6-2001 Gleevec 400 mgs

8-2001 PCRU

Message: 2

Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2006 21:50:00 -0600

From: Barb Neddo <barb.neddo@...>

Subject: Re: ER episode last night!

Skip, et. al.,

Just a final thought on CML running in families - perhaps families are

exposed to the same environmental factors so certain families are more

at risk for leukemia? By the way -the email link for ER from the NBC

website didn't work. I'm still trying to find one that does.