December 3 is one of the happiest days of my life, but at the same time one of the saddest. On that date in 1993 I married Tony Rafter, the man of my dreams. On our 11th wedding anniversary, we got the devastating news that Tony had colorectal cancer.
Our family life together got off to a quick start. In just over three years, we had two children. We were thrilled when I gave birth to Richard in April of 1994, followed by Mathieu in January 1997. Early on, Tony's job as an industrial mechanic took him all over the world for weeks at a time. I hated that Tony wasn't with me and the boys very often. We moved from Ottawa to Montreal in 1997 so Tony could take a job that didn't involve travelling.
From hectic to horrific
Tony loved his new job, and we were all ecstatic to have him home with us every night. We bought a house in the suburbs and once the boys were in school, I found a job as an executive assistant close to home and their school. With Richard and Mathieu enrolled in hockey, soccer and swimming, life was hectic, but we didn't want it any other way.
Then our lives went from hectic to horrific. It was a dental X-ray that gave us the first clue that something was seriously wrong with Tony. In the fall of 2004, Tony noticed an unusual lump on the inside of his jawbone. His dentist ordered a special X-ray that captures the jaws and teeth in detail. The lump turned out to be a harmless bony growth, but its presence prompted the dentist to become suspicious. He asked Tony if he had ever been tested for Gardner Syndrome.
Devastating news
We'd never heard of Gardner Syndrome, so I did an Internet search. When I read the results of my search, it felt like the pieces of a terrible jigsaw puzzle clicking into place in my mind. The syndrome is a variant of familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP), an inherited colorectal cancer syndrome caused by a gene mutation. Along with excess bone growth in the jaw, other symptoms include blood or mucus in the stool, diarrhea and weight loss. Equally chilling was the fact that each child of a parent with FAP has a 50 per cent chance of inheriting the condition.
FAP starts with benign polyps in the colon as early as puberty and in some cases even earlier. With time, the number of polyps multiplies by the hundreds and even thousands. Treatment involves the surgical removal of the colon and sometimes the rectum. Without this radical intervention, cancer is almost always inevitable, with the average age of onset about 39 years.
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