Wow, I always believed GENETICS was everything. Now I believe it even more. This doesn't jive with what Dr. Oz said on Oprah. He says "Genetics is 30% and what you do with your life, is the other 70%.

I think he has to say this so people don't go off and shoot themselves.

My mother's mom had 10 children. 7 survived childhood.
Everybody in my mother's family had cancer in one form or another. They also ALL smoked by the way.

My mom got breast cancer at 75.(didn't die from that, she smoked all her life and had emphasema). My aunt had breast cancer at 40 and a stroke at 45 Didn't kill her. She died at 87 after falling in the kitchen, breaking her hip and going to the hospital, getting pneumonia and died in 2 days) I still can't believe THAT STORY!!!. One of my cousins had breast cancer at 45. My uncle had lung cancer at 38 (killed him).No one else died of cancer though. They got mastectomies, and survived.

This is all on my mom's side. The only one left from her side is my 82 year old Aunt Sally who has a seizure disorder that is completely under control and she belongs to the red (or purple hat) society and they go to dinner theatre once a month. She's a great healthy 82 year old who is completely deaf though.

I have another cousin (the son of the one who died of lung cancer at 38), well he is 55 and has an arrhythmia and they've had to shock him 2 times to get his sinus rythm back. He takes pills.

EVERYBODY IS ON PILLS for this for that, for Prostate, or for high blood pressure etc.

All from my mom's side. My former doctor wanted me to go on hormone replacement therapy when I was 50 saying "you're a good candidate", I then said "really, everybody on my mother's side has had cancer". He then immediately changed his mind.

I do hope I might have inherited genes from my dad (which side is more dominant, does anybody know??). No one had cancer. No one.

But... my father became diabetic when he was 80, and my grandmother also when she was 80.

I told this to Cornell and the doctor said "Diabetes is in your genes". I kind of thought if a person was born with type 1, then it's in your genes, but when she said that, well, I was kind of taken aback.

So between the cancer from my mother's side and the so called inherited tendency to diabetes from my dad's side, well, I might die tomorrow, or I might just break all the rules and live to be 100 years old.

No one knows.

My dad had congestive heart failure when he was 76. He had (as his profession), been a landscaping artist when they moved to Florida. So he mowed lawns ALL DAY LONG. I've been told that this might have led to his congestive heart failure. I do not know. I'm thinking, BREATHING IN ALL THAT LAWN and fertilizer.

I would love to sit down with a geneticist and say "hey, what are my odds of not getting cancer, of not getting congestive heart failure, etc. etc.

I think I'm afraid to hear the answers.

Thanks much Mrs. D.