How to Date the Guy You Hate by Julie Kriss Page 0,20

me in his little appointment room, put down my file next to him, and leaned toward me as if I were interesting.

“Miss Perry,” he said. “You’ve been sent to me because of your mother’s history.”

I swallowed. “Yes.”

He didn’t have to glance at the file; he’d already read it. “I’m very sorry for your loss,” he said. “From everything I’ve read in your mother’s file, she had the best possible care.”

“She was only forty-three.” I said the words in nearly a whisper. All of my anger was gone, all of my bravado, in this little office, sitting in a chair across from this man.

He nodded. “I’ve worked in cancer treatment for all of my career, Megan, and I can tell you with certainty that cancer is a bastard.”

I blinked.

He gave me a small smile. “I didn’t offend you, did I? It’s just what I’ve observed.”

“No, you didn’t offend me.” I actually felt a little more comfortable now.

“So,” Dr. Pfeiffer said. “Are you aware that your mother participated in genetic testing before she passed away?”

“I remember something about it.” So much of that time was a blur. An awful, nightmarish blur.

“That’s where I come in,” Dr. Pfeiffer said. “Since your mother’s breast cancer was so rare, and so aggressive, she was asked to do the testing. As a result, even though she’s passed away, we actually have her genetic profile.” He watched me carefully, making sure I was following. “Breast cancer has a genetic component to it in many cases. Are you aware of that?”

I nodded again. I felt a little like a schoolgirl, but I didn’t mind. I wanted to be led through this, and I didn’t want to think. “It means I could inherit the tendency to get the cancer from her.”

“Technically, it’s a genetic mutation,” Dr. Pfeiffer said. “I won’t get too technical, but I have some literature you can take home and read so you can fully understand it. But the short version is that your mother carried a specific genetic mutation that contributed to her cancer risk. And there is a fifty-fifty chance that she passed this mutation to you.”

I gripped the arms of my chair, unable to say anything. Cold sweat dripped down my neck.

“Okay,” Dr. Pfeiffer said, his voice deep and controlled. “Don’t panic. We discussed genetic testing for you with your father at the time your mother died, but you were only sixteen, and it was decided it was too early. But now that you’re of legal majority, and now that you’ve entered the age of potential risk if you have the mutation, your mother’s oncologist and I conferred and thought you should make an informed decision for yourself.”

“You’re saying,” I said through dry lips, “that I get tested to see if I have this gene. And if I do?”

“It will be decisive either way,” Dr. Pfeiffer said. “I know it’s scary, but this test will take a lot of the guesswork out of your future treatment. If you carry the gene mutation, it isn’t a guarantee you’ll get cancer. If you do, the tests won’t predict when you might develop it. But what it tells us is that we need to start screening aggressively. For example, we’d start doing mammograms on you every year. That’s something most women don’t start until their forties, but we’d start now with you, in your twenties. The sooner we find something, the higher the chance we can treat it successfully.”

I gripped my chair harder. My head was spinning. “Or I could get surgery,” I said. “Like Angelina Jolie. Right?”

His voice went low and gentle. “That is an option, yes,” he said. “There are also preventative drug treatments being tested. But Megan, that is not something you have to decide right now. It isn’t something you’d have to decide at all without extensive counselling, and without all the information available to you. You’re only twenty-three. Understanding your genetic profile this early means that there’s more time for you to think about your options.”

“Okay,” I said. “Tell me more.”

“Your file says you have no siblings,” Dr. Pfeiffer said.

I shook my head.

“That makes it simpler, because your sibling could have inherited the mutation as well, so we’d counsel the family. And if you’ve inherited the mutation, there’s a fifty-fifty chance you’ll pass it on to your own children, so it can affect your decision to have children.”

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I hadn’t even thought about having kids yet, and he was talking about my passing a cancer gene