Tagged: Cancer

There was great fanfare when the Mars Science Laboratory launched in November 2011, and again when its precious cargo — NASA's Mars rover Curiosity — touched down on the red planet in August 2012.

The eight months in between had drama of their own. Curiosity was constantly bombarded with radiation as it traveled through space — high-energy protons thrown out by the sun, and galactic cosmic rays slicing through the solar system from distant supernovas.

When it comes to inherited genetic mutations that increase the risk of breast cancer, BRCA1 and BRCA2 get nearly all the attention.

Inherited mutations in these genes cause from 5 to 10 percent of breast cancers as well as up to 15 percent of ovarian cancers, according to the National Cancer Institute.

There are other, rarer genetic mutations that also predispose women to breast cancer.

When Neeley Wells was diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer, her daughter Dylan was only 10 months old. The doctor told Wells she had two weeks to live. That was 13 years ago.

"In some ways, for me, it's a little like Groundhogs Day. I'll think, maybe this is my last spring break. And then I'll think, yeah, but I've already thought that 13 times. For me, as a person, there's not a lot of value to trying to figure out what the endgame or the end-time is."