Jemma Caprioli was about to turn 30, and like any other woman approaching such a landmark birthday, she had many things to consider.
Would marriage and kids be on the cards in the coming years? Was her career going in the direction she wanted it to? Was she saving enough money for her future?
But the biggest question she had was, would she be alive to experience any of it?
So on the eve of her birthday, she sat down with her parents and her partner, David, and made the decision to have her perfectly healthy stomach removed.

Caprioli had an inherited mutation of the CDH1 gene, the precursor to an aggressive and rare gastric cancer that has killed 12 members of her family - one of them, at the age of 30. Before she had her stomach removed, she had an 80 per cent chance of developing the cancer, and was facing a 20 per cent survival rate if that cancer spread beyond her stomach.
From the age of 19, when she and her brother underwent genetic testing, and subsequently discovered they had the gene mutation they share with their mother, Caprioli was told she had three options.
To have her stomach removed, to do nothing, or have yearly gastroscopies and biopsies to monitor the cancer's progress. But that surveillance would not be foolproof.
"[Our gene mutation] is really rare, and they don't have too much knowledge around the subject. So for 10 years or so, I had gastroscopies where they put a scope down to look at the stomach, but they also take a biopsy from your stomach. That was the only method they had available as an option for us," the 30-year-old told Mamamia.
Top Comments
What a hard decision to have to make. Jemma sounds like an incredibly brave woman. It would be easy to adopt a woe is me look what my genetics have stuck me with attitude and she has dont the opposite.