Ruby had inherited a faulty gene from her father, the one that had caused his death aged 36 from a connective tissue disorder that affected his heart.
Over time, some details emerged. Nobody had ever seen her own family’s particular mutation in anyone else. So that meant it was very hard to know what to make of her situation. Her risk of a heart problem was surely increased, but nobody could say by how much.
…
Ruby believes that it was definitely better to have been informed of her genetic inheritance, because in her case there were things she could do to lower the risk of it becoming a real problem. But it took a long time for her to understand that she was not actually ill. She was only at risk of being ill. In fact, nothing had actually changed; she had only become aware of a possible future.
Every one of us is susceptible to one illness or another to some extent. As science progresses, many more of us will find ourselves in Ruby’s situation; drowning in estimates and probabilities that play games with our mind and our identity, and require us to make difficult decisions about our health.
