About My Family
The people below are some of the best people in the world, to me anyway. This is a family reunion picture, from a few years ago now, but it is still relevant to why I am so interested in colorectal cancer. Unfortunately, there are members of this family tree that could not be present for this picture because of this vicious disease took their lives too soon. I have lost a great-great grandparent, great grandparent and my lovely grandmother, Audrey Simons, before we had the technological advances that we do. Fortunately, we have come a long way in symptom checking and treatment and the wonderful man on the far left is my Uncle, who was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in 2010. He fought hard against this disease and won, but the fate of his children (the two in front) and the rest of Audrey's kids and grandkids (the guy in the orange shirt is my dad and I'm in the striped shirt in front of him) is up to our environment, dietary choices and avoidance of carcinogens. It created a family tension for all of us and we were all scared for a long time when we finally found out it was genetic. Fortunately, my dad did not develop this disease, and he is older than everyone who has battled with the disease already. But what does that mean for me? We don't know. I will have to undergo genetics testing at some point in my life and thanks to this project, I will understand how this disease could affect me in the future.
aBOUT mE
Hi, I am Mikayla Simons and I am a Senior at University of Wisconsin-Madison, graduating in December of 2015. I am a Biology major and I am also pursuing a certificate in Entrepreneurship. I am planning to working in biomedical sales and I am interning at Covance Laboratories for the summer. Please feel free to contact me to ask any questions!
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