A food lover faces an unimaginable choice: Give up her stomach or risk a fatal cancer
"The recommended treatment is stomach removal."
The genetic counselor pushed a brochure across the desk titled: No Stomach For Cancer. She had long brown hair and kind brown eyes that gently held my gaze as we sat in a Kaiser medical office in Los Angeles.
My body constricted, horrified. My stomach? Surreal images of colostomy bags, IV infusions, a diet of chalky vitamin drinks slipped through my head.
I fixed my eyes on the grayish desk sitting between me and my counselor. If I made eye contact again, I might see that she was looking at me. Talking to me. Talking about me.
She continued. There were people who lived normal lives without a stomach. She had more brochures and papers. There were support groups.
I had just learned I carry a genetic mutation that puts me at an incredibly high risk for a rare stomach cancer. This type of cancer is almost impossible to detect in the early, treatable stages — it lurks in the inner lining of the stomach in a lace-like pattern. By the time endoscopies, which give doctors a view into the digestive organ, can see the webby cancer cells forming, they've usually spread to other organs and the disease is incurable.
People who carry this
