Beth Bucher - Genes: A Love Story

 

So, 10 years ago, I underwent genetic testing for the breast cancer gene. I did this, because when I was five years old, I watched my mother die of breast cancer. She was 26 when she was diagnosed and she was 30 when she passed away. And her mother had also died when she was five years old. My older sister died of a rare genetic liver disorder when she was only nine months old. So, it really only felt natural to me to try to figure out why this kept happening to people in my family. And the person that had a front-row seat for all of this pain and death was my Aunt Anna. 

 

Now, my Aunt Anna, she took my mother in after their mother died, and she raised her along with her eight children. Eight children. Just let that sink in. [chuckles] And then, when my mother died, she took in me and my brother and she became a mother all over again. She raised us with her brood of eight adult children. And man, she just did it and she did it well. She did it in that Irish Catholic, blue-collar way, you put your head down and you do what you need to do to take care of your family. She did it with quiet strength. But when I say quiet, I mean quiet. We did not talk about death. We did not talk about cancer. She never talked about what she had seen in her life.

 

Until I was older and in college and on breaks, I would drive down to see her in Southwest Philly, and we would sit around the table and drink bad coffee and talk about life and family, juicy stuff. And then, after enough of that, she started to actually open up about that time. She told me this story about my mom when she was in the hospital, which was a lot. My mother died a blind quadriplegic with steel rods holding up her skull. She suffered [sobs] unimaginably. But that day, when Anna went to see her, she went in and my mom was so happy, and she was smiling and she was excited. She grabbed Anna’s hand and she said, “Ann, Ann, you’ll never believe what the nurses told me this morning. They’re doing liver transplants. They’re doing it. They’re doing it!”

 

That was the thing that would have saved my sister’s life. And in 1975, they were not doing that. It has really always amazed me that my mother was able to find this joy and this happiness, despite being trapped in total hell. I tried to remember that when my own genetic test results came back, and they were positive for the BRCA1 mutation, which was not a surprise. But it took my risk from 12% to somewhere around 60% to 87% risk of getting the disease that seemed to get everyone. And then, around that time, we buried Anna, [sobs] because she got cancer and she did not tell anyone, because she did not want everyone to go through the same thing that she had gone through, and she did not want anyone to see what she saw. And so, quietly, she died. 

 

And at that point, I had enough. I was really done. So, I elected to have a prophylactic mastectomy. I made that decision ferociously. I made every decision after that fearlessly, and with strength. I was resolute, right up until I was alone in a very small room in the hospital that morning with my plastic surgeon, and bare-ass naked [chuckles] with my hospital gown around my waist. He was making all these marks on my breasts with this dark blue grease pen. And I got [sobs] so scared. I was so alone. 

 

And then, in that same instant when I got so scared, I felt over on the right-hand side of the room that there were people there. As much as you all are here right now, they were there. It was my grandmother, and it was my mother, and it was Anna and it was my sister. I was calm, and warm, and happy and excited. I thought about my mother, and I looked over in the corner and I went, [whispers] “Look, Mom, they’re doing it. [audience chuckle] They’re doing this.” And that really is the spirit with which I’ve moved forward after this, is every time I’m walking through this world and I see something awesome or amazing or just beautiful, I look up at the sky and I share it with them and then I tell them, “Look, guys, I’m doing it.” Thank you.