We Were What I Called A “Cancer Family”

By Erica Perets

As a child, I remember thinking that cancer was a normal progression of life. I expected cancer as I would any other life event.  

We were what I called  “a cancer family.”  

I naturally gravitated towards the medical field, became an intensive care unit nurse, then ultimately became an intensive care unit nurse practitioner. This daily reminder of mortality was never a stranger to me.   

In 2018, a few months before my wedding, I awoke to a phone call from my father, “I have colon cancer.” He would need a total colectomy, and 6 months of chemotherapy.  

We met with his surgeon, he couldn't do the colectomy until the last week of May...1 week before my wedding. My father knew he wouldn't be walking me down the aisle.

Later that night, my phone rang, it was the surgeon.  “I’m taking him to surgery next week. I couldn’t imagine not walking my daughter down the aisle.” And just like that, my father had a total colectomy, and 3 months later he proudly walked me down the aisle.  

After learning about my “cancer family,” his surgeon tested him for lynch syndrome, which was positive. After working in the medical field for 14 years how did I not know what this was? We didn’t learn about this in school. I quickly went through my medical books, it was in one. It was a paragraph long. 

I made an appointment with the genetic counselor. I later received a phone call, “you tested positive, we’ll see you in a week for followup.” Bomb dropped. Navigating the medical field was nothing short of a nightmare, even for a nurse practitioner.

I began asking friends of mine who were physicians, nothing, they've never heard of it. This was not their fault, they never learned about it, and neither did I.

I appreciated the physicians that were honest and told me they didn’t know anything about it and took the time to learn. However I ran into all too many that gave wrong information that if I was not educated could have led to confusion.

Some things I heard from fellow medical professionals along my journey were, “you don’t have lynch syndrome because you don't have cancer, you just have the gene” , “as long as you get a colonoscopy every few years that's enough”, “it's very rare,” “there's no true guidelines.”

Ultimately, I found my way through social media. I made lifelong friends. We lean on each other every year for our screenings. It's the only thing that dug me out of a deep pit of depression, and I’m forever grateful. My mission now is to educate my fellow medical providers in hope to save others from the path I took, the path we all took, as previvors and survivors.