This is super super important to note: while testing can cost quite a bit (but is also sometimes covered by insurance), any preventive measures like mastectomy or ovary removal that result from the information you gain from those tests is required BY LAW to be covered by insurance companies. This is under the Genetic…

Everyone has the BRCA 1 & 2 genes. It's only when they carry certain mutation that you become more prone to developing certain cancers. You have to compare your genes to someone who has those specific cancers to know if you're at risk and how high that risk is. If there is no one in your family with ang of those…

Note: we all carry the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. It's the mutation of one of these genes that causes the problems. These genes control tumor-suppressing proteins so when the genes are fucked up, the proteins aren't able to do their job. Hence, increased risk for breast cancer.

It can cost thousands for the first woman in a family to get tested, and if she's not currently battling breast cancer, it may not be covered by insurance. However, and folks should know about this, once geneticists have identified where the gene mutation is located, subsequent family members can get tested for much,…

Swastikas were a symbolic staple for many centuries before the Nazis, Elizabeth Sayers. Doesn't mean Germans should wear them. Context is everything, and the context of those outfits at your school is the tie to the antebellum South. More, it's the tie to the Confederacy- the boys weren't wearing early 19th-century…

"In no way do hoop skirts have any relation to racial intolerance...."

I have the BRCA1 mutation too and I have had the surgeries. While yes it's true that removing breasts and ovaries does not completely remove the risk, it lowers it considerably. While yes, technically I can still get Breast cancer because there is a small amount of Breast tissue left, the chance of me developing…

Does every personal milestone need to be done in as public a forum as possible? Has the main goal in life gone from achieving happiness and helping the less fortunate to amassing "likes" from strangers?

Voldemort is going to be PISSED that y'all are still alive.

(Also these are lovely.)

Girls participating in science experiments? THANKS, OBAMA.

I hate that I'm typing this, but GWB was better looking than Ted Cruz.

Ted Cruz dresses like a 16-year-old Lincoln Douglas debater.

HIS WIFE WORKS AT GOLDMAN SACHS I FEEL LIKE I'M TAKING CRAZY PILLS

Absolutely not. This is unacceptable. This is America. It is 2015.

Husband and I secretly eloped in Key West, came back with fancy new rings and coordinates of the beach we got hitched on.

I love your take on this! I always get a little eye-rolly when people say stuff like, "When you know, you know!" about getting married to someone they just met. Nope...when you're lucky, you're lucky!

My job (at a conservative Christian church) requires me to work weddings pretty often and I'm sometimes shocked by the body language of the couples. I'm sitting there thinking " do they even like, or KNOW each other?"

Anecdote!

I'd be interested in seeing the statistics on divorce for varying...