Chloé Laverson, past President and alumna of Hillel for Utah, shares her brave story of testing positive for the BRCA 1 Gene mutation the causes breast cancer, which is common amongst Ashkenazi women. The excerpt below is taken from an article written by Laverson for Hey Alma
"Right after I was born, a wonderful Jewish family in San Diego adopted me. Fiona, my birth mother, handpicked my parents. She said she had fallen in love with them and together they chose my name, Chloé Esther. My dad had told me that (we think) one of my biological grandparents was Jewish. Fiona also took a particular interest in me being adopted into a Jewish family, but she herself didn’t identify. And then, when I was 6 years old, Fiona passed away of breast cancer — she was only 29. She wasn’t the only one in her family who had passed away from breast cancer; her sister did as well.
I knew the minute I turned 18, I would get tested for BRCA gene mutations. Everyone has genes called BRCA1 and BRCA2, and some people have mutations in these genes. Testing positive for a BRCA gene mutation means an increased risk in breast and ovarian cancer. Unfortunately, this is more common in Ashkenazi Jewish women — according to the CDC, one in 40 Ashkenazi women has a BRCA gene mutation. Including, as it turned out, me."
We are so proud of Chloé and her strength through this journey. To read more of this story, read the original article HERE