Designer genes

Thanks to Steph at the Biopsy Report for directing me to a new book which has recently been published. 

Designer Genes tells the fictional story of Emily Cusack, who has a  loving husband, two adorable kids and a gorgeous home.  The only jeans she normally encounters are the designer version. Then Emily learns about genes of a different kind and how she could be a carrier of a cancer-causing one. Emily doesn t take much lying down and deals with this in her decisive way. But can her marriage survive the aftershock?

Behind the story lies the real life one of 32 year old mother of two, Emma  Hannigan who found out that she was carrying the BRCA1 gene, which  predisposes her to cancer. Like many other young women who face this, she opted to have a bilateral mastectomy and also a bilateral prophylactic oophorectomy (removal of both ovaries) with removal of both fallopian tubes. Of course, as we sre all well aware, apart from the physical after effects of such radical surgery, the emotional after shocks can be just as devastating. 

Although, the choices she made reduced her chances significantly of developing cancer, for Emma, the odds were just too high and she did in fact go on to develop cancer. She has been treated with chemotherapy and is still surviving.

Emma’s novel, Designer Genes is available in bookstores and on Amazon. The bookshop Hughes & Hughes made it book of the month for April and are giving €1 for every book sold to St. Vincent’s Cancer Research Trust.

Listen to Emma’s recent interview on  The Tubridy Show.