Genetic testing for cancer changed one woman’s life

Palm Coast Observer
Neighbors

Dawn Emling watched as her mother fought four types of cancer in a nine-year period.

“In 2007 she was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer, a rare form of cancer,” Emling said. “She went through chemo and radiation treatments and had a lumpectomy. A year and a half later they found a different type of cancer in the same breast and she had a mastectomy.”

Emling, 52, took her mother’s advice and looked into genetic testing, but getting the $6,000 test wasn’t easy. Initially her insurance company said she didn’t qualify.

“My dad had prostate cancer, and my brother went in for his 50 year colon screening when he was 49 and was diagnosed with colon cancer,” Emling said. “My mother was then diagnosed with colon cancer and the colon cancer in the lung, it had metastasized. My dad’s sister had pancreatic cancer and her child died of pancreatic cancer. My mother died in January 2016.”

“Everyone but me had cancer at the time,” she said.

With her family history, Emling also gets annual pancreatic screenings and a colonoscopy every three years.

With help from Dr. Padmaja Sai, Emling was able to take the test.

“I didn’t fit into all of the boxes so the insurance company said I didn’t qualify for the test, even though I had this genealogy of family cancer.” she said. “Dr. Sai could see my angst and went to the pharmaceutical representative and got the test for me at no cost.”

She returned to the doctor’s office to get the results.

“I was looking at the printout with all of these colorful charts. It said ‘high risk breast cancer,’ and ‘elevated risk pancreatic,’” she said.

She had tested positive for the ATM gene. Women with mutations in the ATM gene have an increased risk for breast cancer. While the risk increase in not as high as for women with mutations in the BRCA 2 and 1 genes, it is high enough to consider options to reduce the risk.

Her next step was to consult with Catherine McQuade, a genetic counselor at Halifax Hospital. While her testing was done at Florida Memorial Hospital in Ormond Beach, all of the surgeries were performed at Florida Hospital Flagler.

“I met with Dr. Steven Bower, my doctor, and he told me I could go wherever I wanted for the surgeries, Mayo in Jacksonville, Houston, but I wanted to stay here.”

Even though she didn’t have breast cancer, the high risk made having a mastectomy a logical next step.

“It was Mother’s Day weekend (2015),” she said. “They don’t usually keep you overnight for a mastectomy, but I had previous reactions to certain medicines so I stayed overnight. One night turned into two and three nights.”

The complicaion came from her decision to have nipple sampling, a process where the nipples are saved instead of having them tattooed on. In less than 5% of people the nipples die, Emling was in the 5%.

The past two years have been a series of surgeries, reconstructive surgery and 43 hyperbaric treatments, but on Tuesday, Sept. 6 Emling went back to school to be with her second grade class at Belle Terre Elementary.

She isn’t a stranger to her class, she was their first grade teacher and when she had the opportunity to move up to the second grade with them she took it.

“I am really close to this class. We have family picnics and things like that,” she said.

Emling manages to keep a smile and positive outlook. Something she learned from her mom.

“The only thing I really could do was to be positive,” Emling said. “What good was being negative going to do for me? That’s what my mom showed me the whole time she fought the cancer.”

“That's my journey and I just pray I never get cancer.”