Lynch Syndrome--So Can I Join the X-Men Now?

I'm fairly used to my body failing me. It's happened twice in the last six years.

First time: 2011. I was in labor with my daughter. I had developed preeclampsia. My blood pressure spiked severely after hours of labor and after failing to progress in dilation, I wound up with an emergency c-section. I can very vividly remember the guilt I felt. I tried so hard to avoid an invasive procedure, had the perfect vision of how Peyton's birth would go...and instead I wound up in an OR, the very last person to hold my (thankfully healthy) baby girl because my body just couldn't deal. I grieved, albeit selfishly, for the birth experience I wanted to have but couldn't.

Second time: 2013. I was 14 weeks pregnant with my second child. I went to the doctor for a routine check-up and ultrasound and discovered that my baby had stopped growing. My body never physically miscarried. My pregnancy symptoms were getting stronger. There hadn't been a heart beating inside me for weeks and my body just...carried on with business as usual. I can very vividly remember how betrayed I felt by my own body, being wheeled (yet again) into an OR for a D&E because the risk of infection was too great and my body wasn't working the way it was supposed to. This time I grieved for the baby I'd never know.

And now, I am faced with yet another blow regarding the ineffectiveness of my human body, this time slightly more sinister and a lot more long-term: in January 2017, I was diagnosed with Lynch Syndrome.

Lynch Syndrome, also known as hereditary nonpolyposis colon cancer (HNPCC), is a hereditary disease caused by a mutation in a mismatch repair gene (mine is MSH2) which ultimately gives me a significantly elevated risk for a whole slew of cancers, including two big risks: colorectal cancer and endometrial cancer; but also: stomach cancer; ovarian cancer; gastrointestinal cancer; bladder cancer; kidney cancer; liver cancer; pancreatic cancer; skin cancer; brain cancer...and a few more.

And if that list doesn't leave you scratching your head thinking, 'What's left?', WAIT THERE'S MORE...cancer diagnoses usually occur pretty young in patients with Lynch Syndrome.

So basically, I'm a mutant. But instead of doing cool things like showing off my superhuman strength or harnessing my telepathic powers for the greater good, I'm just SUPER likely to get cancer at a young age.

Jean Grey I am not. How disappointing. Very anticlimactic.

My diagnosis left me very frustrated and defeated. But when you're lucky enough to be armed with your damning genetic information like I am, it would be stupid not to act on it.

I put on my big girl pants and I started making doctor appointments. ALL THE DOCTORS APPOINTMENTS.

The number of specialists I have seen and screening procedures I have had since April makes my head spin. I had my very first colonoscopy and endoscopy in May. They found two polyps during that procedure. This is what drove the gravity of my diagnosis home: had I NOT known about my mutation, I wouldn't have had my first colonoscopy until 50 at the very least...could that have been cancer in a few years? The statistics say yes, probably so. Instead, the doctor removed the polyps and I get to go back next year to do it all over again.

In the last three weeks alone, I've had one skin biopsy on my stomach, a uterine biopsy, an IUD inserted (due to research that suggests such devices can minimize the risk of uterine cancer), and a second skin biopsy on my left glute. I am sitting here on my fluffy pillow nursing my wounds and really--it's all emotionally and physically exhausting. I have never felt more tired and defeated in my entire life...and I haven't even gone into detail about the potential ramifications this has for my daughter's health and that of any children I have in the future (Peyton currently has a 50% chance of having Lynch Syndrome, too, which we will test for when she turns 18).

There is something very morose about looking at your body in the mirror and KNOWING you're playing more of a "when" game than an "if" game. That the odds are stacked against me, and the routine of doctors and screenings are a permanent fixture of my life until they either find cancer and I swiftly kick its ass (a likely scenario), or I die of natural causes at a happy old age.

This is my new normal. And yet I wonder--

Maybe there CAN be something superhuman about me, too?

My father has been bravely fighting cancer since 2015 and is the reason I know I have Lynch Syndrome--because he has it too. His strength is the very definition of superhuman. He is missing a section of his colon and one of his kidneys and is STILL fighting the good fight against the cancer currently housed up in his liver. And his determination has never faltered--not one minute.

When I talk to him on the phone and I hear the pain or sense the slightest edge of discouragement in his voice, he still presses on.

After enough rounds of chemotherapy that I've lost count--he still presses on. Trying the newest treatment, determined to beat this disease that his body is simply hardwired to be susceptible to.

When a lot of people might have given up, refused treatment and given in to cancer...my dad presses on.

I got my Lynch Syndrome from my dad, yes--but I pray every day I also get my superhuman strength from him, too.

So Dad, when do we get to join the X-men for real?