Thanks. I was diagnosed the second time in late 2016. I am back in remission.
The first time (2004) I was tested for BRCA 1 and 2. I’m negative for those genes. This time the testing was more comprehensive and I came up positive for the CHK2 gene.
The good news is that both of my daughters were tested and came up negative. So this shit dies with me. 
Yeah I stripped the shit out of the veins in my arm with chemo because I’m stubborn and refused to get a port. I really can’t donate anything anymore. 
huh, I need to ask my mother if she got tested for the CHK2 gene. Didn’t know that existed. She was negative for the BRCA genes.
However, she had BC in her late 40’s, and it never came back. She’s 77 now, so it hopefully won’t come back.
I keep having scares. They find something suspicious, and either stick me with more needles to determine what it is or last year, make me go through outright surgery to determine that it is again benign since they just wasn’t sure with less invasive procedures. My luck might eventually run out. This is literally every time I get a mammogram. I’m putting it off this year for a bit.
That’s great about your daughters, and must be a huge relief.
Yes. I was very relieved.
I’m going to see if I can donate antibodies. Since I was so mild a case, not sure if I’ll have enough to do anything. If I do, then I will probably have to donate privately. Red Cross still swears up and down I have Hepatitis B because their test years ago said I did, even though I’ve been specifically tested for it elsewhere then and since and every one of those is negative.
A friend’s dad passed away from COVID yesterday and her mom is awaiting test results. 
ETA: Holy crap, her mom broke her hip in December, surgery on Xmas Day, now she’s in the hospital with COVID!!! **** COVID!!! 
I finally now someone(Canadian) who’s had covid - the first. My uncle is recovering. He’s a truck driver; apparently they had 2 cases in his office and didn’t tell staff immediately.
Still not that close to home, I haven’t seen this uncle in 20+ years and he’s 500 miles away.
But it’s coming. Numbers in Ontario are still climbing, hospitals are starting to get packed. Disconcerting to say the least, to have spent the last year in the house, and when we’re in the home stretch things are getting worse instead of better.
first knowing someone at this point who had covid is pretty surprising. i’ve lost count of the people who i know that contracted it. thankfully still everyone who i know personally and contracted the virus, also survived it. hopefully stays that way 
actually you may know more than you think, my wife and I didn’t make it all that public when we had it.
I must know 30 or so people,
How’s your mom?
Breadmaker = Inconceivable?
I know, I know: HFBB.
Real Sports (HBO) had a story about “long-hauler” elite athletes not even able to work out or jog (one was using a cart) due to their having had COVID. I hope this is not a forever thing. I can hope because it’s only been 12 months and we don’t know for sure what how long the haul will be.
…using the past to predict the future…
Spanish Influenza lasted a little longer than 2 years with 4 waves.
Well, I’m referring more to the recovery of these “long-haulers” and how long their haul will be, i.e., will they ever recover from the COVID-related ailments.
But to respond to your post, I think we have it a little better in that we have a vaccine, whereas those 100 years ago did not. well, there was a vaccine, but it was not administered to the 100 million people of the time, nor did it seem to work.
Certainly none of the vaccines described above prevented viral influenza infection – we know now that influenza is caused by a virus, and none of the vaccines protected against it. But were any of them protective against the bacterial infections that developed secondary to influenza? Vaccinologist Stanley A. Plotkin, MD, thinks they were not. He told us, “The bacterial vaccines developed for Spanish influenza were probably ineffective because at the time it was not known that pneumococcal bacteria come in many, many serotypes and that of the bacterial group they called B. influenzae, only one type is a major pathogen.” In other words, the vaccine developers had little ability to identify, isolate, and produce all the potential disease-causing strains of bacteria circulating at the time. Indeed, today’s pneumococcal vaccine for children protects against 13 serotypes of that bacteria, and the vaccine for adults protects against 23 serotypes.
It was a friend’s mom. So far, she’s still in the hospital. 
So I read in The Economist that the vaccines aren’t working as well in South Africa where there’s a new strain. 
Yes, but South African test results are included in the Johnson & Johnson end results, which lowered the effective percentage
Right… the vaccines that have been tested in South Africa are less effective in South Africa than in other areas.
This suggests that probably a lot of the vaccines are not as effective against the new strain, which is bad.
