EXCLUSIVE I lost my mom, 3 siblings and nephew to early-onset cancer...
years later I discovered a little-known genetic silent killer was to blame READ MORE: My wife and daughter were both diagnosed with brain cancer within a year By Lawrence Ingrassia Published: 21:20 BST, 16 June 2024 | Updated: 21:43 BST, 16 June 2024 e-mail View comments Many families are touched by cancer , but a handful seem especially cursed. Mine is one of them. Over a half century, cancer has stalked my family.
Five members have developed the disease, and it's killed all of them, four before age 45. My mother first developed breast cancer in her 30s, and died at 42 in 1968. My youngest sister died at age 24 of abdominal cancer in 1981, and my other sister died of lung cancer six years later, aged 32.
My brother's son, who survived cancer in his cheek when he was just two, would die early in 2019 after developing a bone tumor. My brother survived lung cancer at 46, but would have several other cancers before dying at age 69 – just seven months after his son – of pancreatic cancer. The Ingrassia family siblings (from left: Angela, Gina, Lawrence and Paul.
Only Lawrence survived Lawrence's mother Regina with baby Paul in 1950. Paul succumbed to pancreatic cancer in 2019, after fighting lung cancer at 45 and prostate cancer at 52 Each new cancer had brought grief, and disbelief. Why was this happening? Could nothing be done? Why was I the only of the four siblings spared? Would I be next? For a long t.
