Page 12 of Never Stop

I stared at her.This. Wasn’t. Happening.Cancer, tumors, familial whatever, wasn’t supposed to be in my vocabulary anymore. I’d had surgery and radiation dammit!

I wasdone.

“And the long answer?”

I took a deep breath at Easton’s next question. Did I really want to know? The short answer had the C word in it.

“When a person develops more than a hundred adenomatous colon polyps—”

“Hundred of what?” Easton asked.

Megan smiled. “An adenomatous polyp is an area where normal cells that line the inside of a person’s colon form a mass on the inside of the intestinal tract. The average age for polyps to develop in people with FAP is in the mid-teens. More than ninety-five percent of people with FAP will have multiple colon polyps by the age of thirty-five. If FAP is not recognized and treated, there’s almost a one-hundred percent chance that a person will develop colorectal cancer.”

I still wasn’t able to speak. I never in a million years thought I could or would have colon cancer. I had a tumor near my right lung, not near my colon—mylung. And now I could have hundreds of polyps in my colon? I didn’t have any signs or symptoms of colon cancer except the tumor. My bowels were working like they always had, and I definitely had no bleeding.

My hand clenched in Easton’s, and his thumb rubbed the back of my hand as if to soothe me. It wasn’t working. My leg continued to bounce, and I started to sweat as I thought about the hundreds of tiny cysts that might be growing inside me.

“So you’re saying that Brooke could have had FAP since she was a teenager?”

My gaze darted up to Megan at Easton’s question.

“It’s very possible,” she responded. “We’re not sure why people have the desmoid mutation or why thirty percent also have FAP. It’s best to get genetic testing and a colonoscopy to rule it out.”

“And if,” I cleared my throat, finally finding my voice. “And if I don’t have FAP?”

“Then you’re among the rare group of people living with the mutation. Even rarer because of the location.”

“And…” I sighed. “And if I do?”

“You’ll need to see a specialist and know that there’s a fifty-fifty chance that if you have FAP, your kids will have it. Do you have any children?”

I shook my head and she continued asking me questions, but my thoughts were all over the place. If I had this FAP bullshit, I wouldn’t have kids. I would never take the fifty-fifty chance of putting my children through the hell and the pain of the never-ending nightmare.

I responded to the appropriate health questions like,“Do you know anyone in your family with cancer?”

“Does anyone in your family have polyps?”

I didn’t know my family history on my father’s side. I wouldn’t know the man if he walked past me on the street. And as for my mother—fuck, I needed to call her and find out any history she could give me. My nightmare had gone from bad to worse.