Cancer-prone family chooses to have stomach surgically removed

fort myers

Sometimes it’s easy to see what you inherited from your family, like your mom’s smile or your dad’s blue eyes.

However, genetics may have played an important role for generations when it comes to certain health conditions.

An extended family with a genetic form of stomach cancer had to make a potentially life-saving decision that many members chose to make.

Beth Lumber, 54, comes from a large family.

She is one of five siblings, but her younger brother Seve died in 2006 from stomach cancer.

“Just watching our brother walk away from being so vibrant, he really stuck to the end,” said Lambert.

At the same time, her mother was battling colon cancer. Her cancer cells had the same abnormal symptomatic cell pattern as Steve’s.

A wary doctor suggested genetic testing.

Kristen Shannon is a Certified Genetic Counselor.

She said there has been a dramatic shift in the field recently with a significant increase in the number of test labs.

“So, in addition to bRCA1 and bRCA2, we can test up to 80 different genes associated with cancer,” said Dr. Shannon.

One of those genetic mutations is the cause of the progressive gastric cancer claimed by the Lambert brothers.

“My sister Cathy tested positive. My brother Mike tested positive. Our brother Dave tested negative and I tested positive,” Lambert said.

Cancer was associated with the mucous membrane of the stomach, so prevention meant surgical removal of the stomach.

“You see, a lot of times people are like, oh my god, they didn’t know you could live without a stomach. That’s so radical, I can’t believe you would do that.”
And we always say it’s very easy for us,” Lambert said.

She and her brother Mike had surgery scheduled for the same day. Then the focus shifted to the next generation.

Mike’s daughter, Shannon Walsh, tested positive for the CDH-1 gene in college.

She also chose to have her stomach removed.

“So it went from being able to wait as long as you want to being within reason that you should really think about doing this,” Walsh said.

My family eats less.

There are no off-limits foods, but there are foods that are easy to process.

Despite the challenges, Lambert is grateful that his mother paved the way for discovering their genetic risk.

“If she hadn’t done that, we would have had a very different story. To be honest, we probably wouldn’t be here to tell this story,” said Lambert. rice field.

Families take nutritional supplements to compensate for foods that struggle to process.

In addition to one of Lambert’s children, Walsh, two of her siblings’ children have tested positive for the stomach cancer gene.

The family participates in the non-profit organization No Stomach for Cancer to raise awareness and funding for research.