The average risk for a man of European ancestry is 7.2%, but my SNPs lower my risk to 4.9%. After unlocking the report, Alzheimer’s disease turned out green. A significantly higher risk, yes, but not something to lose sleep over. 3.5% of the European men with my SNPs get this joint disease, compared to 2.9% on average. And for dozens of different diseases and conditions, all numbered in red, green or grey.
There were SNPs for my brown eyes, curly hair and wet earwax. All the SNPs that are me (SNPs – say ‘snips’ – are the one letter variations in our DNA that companies like 23andMe genotype and interpret). I surfed to 23andMe’s website and there they were. What if one betrayed me, revealing itself as a harbinger of some untreatable or life-threatening disease? Here I was, just a few clicks away from my genes. I still remember the duel held by excitement and anxiety in my stomach that evening. I filled a tube filled with some of my finest spit, sent it back to Los Angeles and before long, I received an e-mail informing me that my results were ready. Now she has a grandson with a plan.Ĭurious to peek behind the curtains of me, I ordered a testing kit from 23andMe two years ago. Now my grandmother has grown old and grey. DNA sequencing became faster, cheaper and more robust by the year. Later, when scientists cracked the genetic code and learned how to sequence genes, she was still a young woman, raising two young boys.
After all, she was just an 18 year old girl in a war-torn country when Avery, MacLeod, and McCarty concluded for the first time that strands of DNA, and not proteins, carry our hereditary information. I’m not even sure my grandmother would know what a gene is. I’ve never discussed genetic testing with my grandmother. I know it is a selfish plan, driven by my own curiosity and of no immediate benefit to my grandmother. Visiting hours are almost over.Īs I drive back home, an old plan wrests itself free from the back of my mind. We eat some of the strawberries that I brought, careful not to stain the sheets. “At least the view is wonderful.” My grandmother manages a faint smile. Outside, the autumn sun colours the treetops a golden red. She wants to go home, but understands that she has to stay in the hospital for another while.
This is when my grandmother feels a sudden sting in her chest and loses her breath. Her blood carries the clot past her heart, to her lungs, where it becomes stuck in a pulmonary artery. Somewhere deep in my grandmother’s veins, a blood clot breaks free.
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