{"id":91199,"date":"2025-10-21T01:51:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T01:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/91199\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T01:51:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T01:51:09","slug":"brca2-gene-family-speaks-out-on-inherited-cancer-and-hope-for-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/91199\/","title":{"rendered":"BRCA2 gene family speaks out on inherited cancer and hope for the future"},"content":{"rendered":"

For women, the BRCA gene mutation<\/a> dramatically increases the likelihood of getting breast or ovarian cancer, and a preventative mastectomy and oophorectomy (ovary removal) is often recommended to reduce risk. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s devastating to keep count of how many in Jody\u2019s family have lost their lives to cancer, including her sister, father, grandmother and uncles. <\/p>\n

\u201cZoe and Emma have friends who have never been to a funeral, never lost anyone, even a pet, but they have endured so much grief up close and lost so many.\u201d<\/p>\n

In October 2024, Zoe, who lives in Dunedin, where she is studying law and politics, became the first person in three generations of their immediate family to test negative for BRCA. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe was pretty level-headed about it and decided to get the results on her own,\u201d explains Jody. <\/p>\n

\"JodyJody and James spoke openly with the girls about what Jody and other family members had experienced. Photo \/ NZ Woman’s Weekly<\/p>\n

\u201cMy niece Apryl and I were messaging wildly checking, \u2018Do you really want to know on your own?\u2019 A large part of that was because everyone else has always tested positive, so I didn\u2019t imagine it could be anything else. It was an incredible feeling when she tested negative.\u201d<\/p>\n

The future is uncertain for Emma, who is still undergoing the testing process<\/a>, which involves consulting a genetic counsellor before taking a blood test.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve talked about it as a family,\u201d says Jody. \u201cIt will be jubilant if she\u2019s negative and a very strange mixture of feelings if she\u2019s positive.\u201d <\/p>\n

From a very early age, Jody and husband James decided to speak openly with the girls about what Jody and other family members had experienced, and what their options would be if they tested positive. <\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the decisions for people who haven\u2019t had children yet is embryo screening,\u201d explains Jody, explaining that through IVF<\/a> you can see which embryos carry the BRCA gene mutation and choose not to use them. <\/p>\n

\"AprylApryl and Jody in Melbourne. Photo \/ NZ Woman’s Weekly<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s an incredible dilemma because if we had done that, we wouldn\u2019t have these two spectacular, incredible girls. But it\u2019s something I quite possibly would have chosen if I were in a different age bracket [Jody found out at 40] because then you can stop it from ever affecting your grandchildren.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor us, it\u2019s multiple generations widowed or orphaned, so having some options is amazing. They weren\u2019t there for my grandmother, who died in her forties and left three sons or for my sister, who was only 48.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jody is quick to add that BRCA doesn\u2019t just affect women. Her dad was the carrier who passed it to her. He died at 34 from melanoma, which also has a slightly increased risk with the gene, and his brother had breast cancer. <\/p>\n

This Breast Cancer Awareness Month<\/a>, Jody is joined by Zoe, Emma and Apryl, sharing their family\u2019s story in a series of short films about inherited cancers for the NZ Familial Breast and Ovarian Cancer Trust. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m incredibly proud of these three young women and their willingness to step up, speak out and be seen,\u201d enthuses Jody. <\/p>\n

Apryl lost her mum Kerri when she was only 19. That same year, she tested positive and, at 22, underwent a double mastectomy. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cApryl and I are exceptionally close,\u201d shares Jody. \u201cI watched her birth, we were there together when her mum \u2013 my sister \u2013 died, and we were each other\u2019s hospital buddies and looked after each other through our own surgeries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jody hopes the films and their advocacy work will encourage others to get tested and influence GPs to become more informed about inherited cancer. <\/p>\n

For her girls, she dreams of a future where one day they will all be free of the BRCA shadow. <\/p>\n

\u201cI hope they have incredible opportunities, and that we have more and more medical advances in this area. Hopefully, it will have stopped in my family and if not, we\u2019re pretty well prepared to look after each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watch the short films at nzfboc.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For women, the BRCA gene mutation dramatically increases the likelihood of getting breast or ovarian cancer, and a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[432,68413,74,24752,2851,95,682,68412,26427,2534,8530,380,797,8609,68414,2109,2082,1874,3273,4640,62821,134,2883,68410,68411,68416,685,4507,424,55970,20783,111,139,69,90,3111,37482,68417,5196,27886,17213,44970,199,223,68415,27342,6041,1316,102],"class_list":["post-91199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-action","tag-adjusting","tag-after","tag-ago","tag-also","tag-and","tag-being","tag-bewshair","tag-brca2","tag-cancer","tag-carried","tag-decade","tag-diagnosed","tag-double","tag-fallopian","tag-family","tag-for","tag-found","tag-future","tag-gene","tag-grieving","tag-health","tag-hope","tag-inherited","tag-jody","tag-kerri","tag-last","tag-late","tag-life","tag-mastectomy","tag-mutation","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-out","tag-ovaries","tag-preventative","tag-removed","tag-sister","tag-speaks","tag-spoke","tag-take","tag-the","tag-tubes","tag-undergone","tag-weekly","tag-when","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}