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:
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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