Genetic Update and Monkey. Seriously?

It's been a while since I last posted and their has been a lot going on.

Last week I got a call from my genetic counsellor at the childrens hospital to discuss the latest testing that was done on my tumor. Up to that point she had done two tests to determine if my cancer was caused by any know genetic mutation or inherited gene, but the results showed that no, that was not the case. There was one more test to do for a gene that is known to be the cause of colon cancer in less than 5% of the cases. The results were interesting. It turns out that I am a carrier of this recessive gene. BUT while I am a carrier I only carry one copy of the gene, not the two required to make this the cause of my cancer. That means that at least one of my parents is a carrier. In order to pass an active form of the disorder on to my kids, they would have to inherit one copy of the gene from me and one from Penny. So, the next step is to get Penny tested to see if she is a carrier. If she is then there would be a 1/4 chance that one of the kids would have the active condition. Bottom line: This isn't the cause of my cancer but more testing will be done on Penny to see if she is a carrier. If she is not a carrier then the worst that can happen is that Carly or Andrew could be a carrier. Clear as mud?

This is surgery week. As of lunch hour on Tuesday I am still waiting to hear back from Dr. Buie's office to see if I can go in early Wednesday and have the wire placed into my abscess. I'm thinking that since I haven't heard anything yet and my surgery is just around the corner, the chances of something happening with interventional radiology are remote at best. BUT I never count Dr. Buie out. Who knows? He might have a secret plan up his sleeve.

My Movember moustache effort is going well as you can see from the picture above. If you haven't had a chance to donate, it's not too late. You can visit my Movember page to see some pictures and make a donation.

Also, this article was in the Globe online edition today. It details the top 25 most hacked passwords. What's with number six?

1) password
2) 123456
3) 12345678
4) qwerty
5) abc123
6) monkey
7) 1234567
8) letmein
9) trustno1
10) dragon
11) baseball
12) 111111
13) iloveyou
14) master
15) sunshine
16) ashley
17) bailey
18) passw0rd
19) shadow
20) 123123
21) 654321
22) superman
23) qazwsx
24) michael
25) football