Real Families--SHEESH!

Venita's family is the poster child of dysfunctional families. She has 6 siblings. Venita's Mom had 4 siblings; her father had no siblings.

She has been trying to contact family members because of the cancer--both to obtain info about past breast cancers and to alert them that they (if female) or their children (if female) could be at risk for invasive lobular carcinoma.

She hasn't been in contact with many of these people for many many years. Quick cut to the short version. No one in the generation above Venita seems particularly interested in passing the information onto their female children. "Give me your phone number and if my daughter Missy wants to get in touch with you she will."

Also found out that Venita's maternal grandmother had breast cancer. "Well your Mom probably didn't know about it because that's when she wasn't talking to the family." Being the poor family they were, the grandmother went to an indigent hospital for a biopsy and sent home. No follow up treatment that anyone knows about. "It wasn't all that serious." Of course we are tallking maybe 45 years ago, so certainly no way to get any information on the type of cancer (if pathology was even that sophisticated back then). "But then breast cancer didn't kill her," although she did die 4 years later, and Venita still doesn't know what from.

The exception in Venita's "real" family is her brother in Texas, Les. After Jim, Les is Venita's biggest supporter.