Reporter's medical story

Times reporter Anna Gorman goes first-person in today's Column One to detail her family's fight with cancer and her own surgery to remove her ovaries, uterus and fallopian tubes. Gorman carries the BRCA1 gene mutation that greatly increases the risk of cancer. She writes about the agonizing decision, first, to be tested for the mutation and, then, to have preemptive surgery.

My father thought I was playing Russian roulette with my life. Now that I had a baby, he believed there was no reason to wait.

I felt terrified for myself as well, as though cancer were this venomous snake waiting to strike. My aunt Lois was just 34, a few years older than I, when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She died at 38.

I wanted to tell my father what he wanted to hear. How could I deny him his last wish for me?

But I wasn't ready. I wanted another baby, a sibling for my daughter. Over and over, I apologized. I begged him to trust me.

Gorman chats live on LATimes.com at 1 pm.

Photo: Anne Cusack/LA Times