None of us get to choose the specific genes we passed on to our children, however we do get to choose what we do about it.
Our family's story is like so many others. In Tom's youth, many members of his mother's French Canadian family died suddenly of heart attacks. Then it came time for him and his siblings to confront the effects of what we later learned the words for - Familial Hypercholesterolemia.
You could say we are the lucky ones. Knowledge and medical progress have enabled our generation to survive, but effective treatment came late for us and we paid a high price. Forty years after the first diagnosis, among the Davis siblings we have 6 separate bypass surgeries, 3 stentings, and 2 heart attacks. Thankfully, we are all still here.
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