Genes Will Out

Yesterday, at my brother’s mysterious urging, I called my sister in Boston. She was reported to be depressed about something, and she usually fights against anything that could bring her low. She has come through all sorts of things in the past: staffing issues at work, raising two daughters, dealing with her husband’s ongoing midlife crisis. Something was different this time.

She told me that she had had a red mark on her skin for some weeks that looked suspicious, so she consulted a doctor friend about it. (As a nurse practitioner, she has lots of those friends.) He told her it was a squamous cell cancer. It was located on her nose, right where the nose pads of glasses sit, so it was kind of strange. She is not a sun worshipper by any means, but our father had the same sort of thing on his chest and ear some years ago. We always attributed that to his days of lifeguarding on the beach at Atlantic City, but who knows.

They will take care of it on Friday with lasers.

But there was more. She had noticed a giant “floater” in her eye one day, and when it didn’t go away, she went to a doctor who told her she had a tear in her retina. They lasered that and told her “No restrictions, you can go back to work”. So she did. Then there was a second and third tear. A first year resident said this was very common. My sister had little faith in what such an inexperienced person thought was likely or not, so she consulted an opthamalogist who still sent her home with “no restrictions” after the second tear. Later, she decided to take a couple of days off for the heck of it—something she never does.

Mom had had a detached retina, so we started thinking about that. We thought these things had happened to our parents when they were somewhat older than us spry fifty-somethings, though. Maybe they just seemed older to us at the time.

Wonder what other little genetic landmines are out there?