Dr. Patricia Kelly

Today we (Mark, my sister Erin and I) met Dr. Patricia Kelly. Dr. Kelly is a genetics doctor. Most of the appointment was spent taking down my family history. Like who we were, who was living, if not living, what was the cause of death, and all sorts of things.

It is a good idea to keep a thorough family tree with history. You never know when you'll need it.

I remember after my dad died in 1995 it gave me great comfort to update my family tree. I cannot express how good it felt to find my dad's family tree on the internet! His Uncle Pete (who I did not know existed) had put his family tree online. It was wonderful to connect. It was a little bit like still having Dad around. See, Dad was an only child, except for a half-sister in Sacramento - whom we didn't see much of.

Then, after Mom died, I found some of my mom's family online, too.

Anyway, the point is....keep track, if you can!

So the appointment was good. We enjoyed speaking with Dr. Kelly very much. It was kinda like having our our Discovery Channel show in person. Dr. Kelly is very much the scientist. She was explaining what the genetics testing could tell us and how useful it could be. One of it's purposes is to help determine whether or not I would be predisposed to developing ovarian cancer, as well as help determine if I have developed breast cancer through genetics. I have a picture of Dr. Kelly that I will post in my photo album on Yahoo. Before we left her office she handed me a copy of her book: "Assess Your True Risk Of Breast Cancer". Isn't that cool? Mark asked her if she could sign our copy. :-)

Tomorrow, my right breast gets it's day in the limelight. Tomorrow is my right breast MRI.

I find it hard to believe no one is interested in taking my fingerprints at this hospital. Isn't it strange? They know they exact mapping of all of my veins and probably have my DNA all mapped out by now. The crazy thing is that no one wants to see my ID...just my insurance card (that doesn't surprise me that much, actually)

Well, not much news today, except the neighbor across the street is fine, Kathy. He had a huge gall stone...size of a lemon almost. I am weaning myself off the Darvocet. Oh yes, and my house is a complete and absolute mess. I have a bunch of the pink wristbands! I am going to send them to work one day next week.

Have a great ... everything.

Deirdre