It is Finished

I had mail in my mailbox from UW yesterday.  I was incredibly surprised to find a note from my endocrinologist, Dr. Desantis, saying that my genetic testing results for the VHL mutation were in--at least the preliminary one--and the gene sequencing was completely, "unremarkable."  I was tested last Monday, so it knocked my socks off to get the results that fast.

That means I tested negative for VHL.

That's the last of the tests for the genetic mutations.

I do not have any of the mutations for which I was tested.

Tomas seems to have been a random freak occurrence with no rhyme or reason behind his showing  up.

And on Good Friday of 2012--a few months shy of two years from all of this starting, "It is finished."  That's the last loose end to tie up.  Unless something new is discovered down the line, it appears that I am negative for all of the genetic anomalies that cause these tumors.

This is very good news.

I don't think that things will ever really feel finished.  I will always have questions.  Why did it happen when I was so young?  Why did it happen at all?  

And there will be follow ups yearly or bi-annually.  And with each of those, my heart will quicken and I'll wonder if we're about to learn about something else that will knock us for a loop.

I was told at my last appointment that mutation or no it is now assumed that I have a predisposition to grow these tumors.  Because...  Well, I grew one!  

But all the questions that can BE answered have been answered.  Tomas is gone.  We have no reason to believe that he was the result of any genetic wonkiness (though I gotta tell you, mutant genes or no, I come by my weirdness naturally ;)).  

The i's are dotted.  The t's are crossed.  Now my job and the doctors is just to keep it that way.