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Cardiomyopathy
    9.  Optic Nerve Atrophy
    10.  Retinitis Pigmentosa
    11.  Al-antitrypsin Deficiency
    12.  Marfan Syndrome
    13.  Hypernephroma
    14.  Osteopetrosis
    15.  Diabetes Mellitus
    16.  Burkitt’s Lymphoma
    17.  Crohn’s Disease. Regional Ileitis
    (Cont . . . page 2)
     
    ‘I have the genes for all these diseases?’ Naomi said, shocked.
    There was a tinge of humour in Dettore’s voice. ‘Yes, you have some genes that predispose you for all of them. I don’t want to scare you, Mrs Klaesson, but there are another sixteen pages.’
    ‘I’ve never heard of half of these.’ She looked at John, who was staring expressionlessly at the screen. ‘Do you know them?’
    ‘Not all of them, no.’
    Naomi stared down at the thick form that lay on the table in front of her and John. Pages and pages of little boxes that needed a tick or a cross.
    ‘Believe me,’ Dettore said, ‘you absolutely do not want to pass any of these on to your kids.’
    Naomi stared at the list on the screen again, finding it hard to concentrate. Nothing ever worked out the way you imagined it, she thought, her brain swilling around inside her head, fighting yet another bout of nausea. Her throat was parched and there was a vile taste in her mouth. She’d drunk one cup of tea and managed to force down just two mouthfuls of dry toast since arriving on the ship yesterday. The sea was calmer this morning, as Dr Dettore had forecast, but the motion of the ship did not seem to be a whole lot better.
    ‘What is hypernephroma?’ she asked.
    ‘That’s renal cell carcinoma – cancer of the kidney.’
    ‘And osteopetrosis?’
    ‘Actually, I’m quite excited to see that.’
    She stared at him in horror. ‘Excited? Why are you excited to see that?’
    ‘It’s an extremely rare congenital condition – it’s known as Boyer’s Ossification disease – that causes a thickening of the bones. There used to be a lot of argument about whether this is hereditary or not – now through genetics we can see that it is. Are you aware of anyone in your family having had it?’
    She shook her head. ‘Diabetes,’ she said. ‘I know we have that in my family. My grandfather was diabetic.’
    Dr Dettore tapped a key and scrolled through the next page, then the next. The list was bewildering to her. When they reached the last page she said, ‘I have ovarian cancer in my family – an aunt of mine died of it in her thirties. I didn’t see that gene.’
    Dettore scrolled back three pages, then pointed with his finger.
    Gloomily she nodded as she saw it, too. ‘That means I’m carrying it?’
    ‘You’re carrying everything you see.’
    ‘How come I’m still alive?’
    ‘There’s a big element of lottery with genes,’ the geneticist said. ‘Dreyens-Schlemmer, which killed your son, can be carried by individuals like yourself and Dr Klaesson all your lives without harming you. It’s only when you produce a child, and the child inherits the Dreyens-Schlemmer gene from both parents, that we see the disease. Other disease gene groups that you carry can be expressed by all kinds of factors, many of which we still don’t understand. Age, smoking, environment, stress, shock, accidents – all of these can act as triggers for certain genes. It is quite possible you could carry everything you’ve seen on this list all your life and not be affected by any of the diseases they can create.’
    ‘But I’ll pass them on to any child I have?’
    ‘Ordinarily you would pass some, absolutely. Probably around half. The other half of the baby’s genes would be inherited from your husband – we’re about to take a look at his list now.’
    Naomi tried for a moment to take a step back, to distance herself and think objectively. Schizophrenia. Heart disease. Muscular dystrophy. Breast cancer. Ovarian cancer. ‘Dr Dettore, you’ve identified all these disease genes I’m carrying, but are you able to do anything about them – I mean – OK, you can stop