In this episode, Laura Kieger talks about her family's experience with the hereditary cancer syndrome, FAP. In Summer's Complaint: My family's courageous, century-long struggle with a rare genetic cancer syndrome Kieger chronicles her family's multigenerational struggle with familial adenomatous polyposis. Summer's Complaint highlights the health aspects of DNA, the importance of knowing a genetic diagnosis and connecting with knowledgeable specialists, and sharing medical details with family. Kieger relates how in just a few short decades, the progress of medical genetics and cancer diagnosis has had a profound impact on her own life and others in her family. If anyone needs an example to point to as support for the importance of sharing DNA medical surprises with family, this episode of DNA Clarity and Support offers it!
Although considered a rare disease, FAP affects many families around the world. Kieger gives listeners a short summary of what everyone should know about the condition and describes how the condition has had variable effects on different relatives in the family. Life with FAP is different for the younger people in her family compared to the past generations, with genetic testing now making it possible for younger family members to avoid the intense and often invasive medical surveillance that she and her siblings endured. Also learn how assisted reproductive technologies like IVF have altered the transmission of FAP in her and other families.
From a story of learning about dominant hereditary conditions in a college lecture to the experience of losing multiple family members at too-young an age, Kieger's experience is relatable even for those who do not have a family history of hereditary cancer.
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