When I was first diagnosed with cancer, I was frequently asked what kind of cancer I had. Obviously, I would respond with "Endometrial Cancer". Sometimes, people would look puzzled and other times, people would respond with "Where is that?"
Let's take a look at this image from www.freepik.com:
As you can see in the image, the endometrium is the
lining of the uterus. According to www.cancer.gov, endometrial cancer is disease in which malignant cancer cells in the endometrium start to grow uncontrollably. That is where my cancer started.
When I was first diagnosed, I thought I would feel better having someone or something to place blame on. The following are risk factors for endometrial cancer:
-Taking estrogen-only hormone replacement therapy after menopause
-Taking tamoxifen to prevent breast cancer
-Obesity
-Having a metabolic syndrome
-Having Type 2 diabetes
-Exposure of endometrial tissue to estrogen made by the body
-Lynch Syndrome
Let's talk about Lynch Syndrome for a second. When I was researching my kind of cancer, this syndrome came up a lot. This is a genetic condition that makes a person more susceptible to getting endometrial cancer (as well as colon cancer). I thought for SURE this was why I had gotten endometrial cancer right before I turned 40. Before I started treatment, I was asked by my oncologist to consider genetic testing, I had thought about it, but didn't want to because I was afraid that I would receive bad news. While discussing this with her, she said that if anything, I could find out if my genes were mutated in any way-and I could take preventative measures if needed. Once she put it that way, I went for it. After going through genetic testing, I learned that I had zero risk factors.
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