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By Laurae Lyster-Mensh
Times-Democrat Writer
“I was lucky.”
Ruth Linkous-Gosper says this a lot. Faced with the early stages of breast cancer and armed with new genetic tests that showed a gene likely to cause her a recurrence, Linkous-Gosper made a decision earlier this year that she doesn’t regret: she opted to have both breasts removed entirely to prevent future cancer.
When she was only 8 years old, Linkous-Gosper lost her mother to breast cancer. Her mother was 36.
Last year on her own 36th birthday, she remembers telling her new husband she would rather be 35 or 37: anything but 36. The shadow of cancer had followed her and her sister all their lives, but had never seemed closer.
Just after Thanksgiving, Linkous-Gosper got the results of her mammogram. A series of X-rays and a biopsy followed.
“I had cancer,” she said.
Treatments for breast cancer vary. Lumpectomy, mastectomy, radiation treatments, and chemotherapy were discussed.
Then the oncologist made a suggestion: why not be tested for the “breast cancer gene”?
Eight years ago, when a doctor mentioned genetic testing to
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