SEEING DOUBLE: DISEASE IN MULTIPLE TWINS

When one sibling of quadruplet brothers is diagnosed with cancer, what's the risk for the others?

- Jamie Valentino

AS CHILDREN, MY QUADRUPLET BROTHERS AND I HAD A KNACK FOR GETTING COLLECTIVELY SICK WHENEVER ONE PERSON WOULD FALL ILL. GERMS TRAVELLED AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT BECAUSE WHENEVER THE WORDS LEFT SOMEONE'S MOUTH, THE REST WOULD IMMEDIATELY IDENTIFY WITH THE SAME SYMPTOMS. WHO KNEW EXHAUSTION OR HEADACHES WERE SO CONTAGIOUS?

Of course, the possibility of getting to skip school might have had something to do with it. But, since the inception of my memory, I've felt bonded to my brothers—our existences aligned, and I felt deserving of every item or experience they had. Growing up, we were like four cells crowding around the same nucleus, known as Mum.

But happenstance and adulthood cemented our individuality. I always had a tingling about our innate differences, but I fully stepped into them when I came out as gay. Years later, when one of my brothers was diagnosed with testicular cancer, he was also forced to grapple with the different trajectories of our genetics— respective humanities.

"Does that mean I should get tested?" was regrettably my knee-jerk reaction. But I suppose it was easier than facing my real fear of what that meant for him. Thankfully, my brother caught it early and had surgery to replace the problematic testicle with a prosthetic. He was recently deemed cancer-free for the second year in a row.

However, I still wondered if being a multiple increases your risk of cancer if one of the others gets diagnosed. After all, if a family history of cancer is said to increase your risk, wouldn't your twin's health be the closest reflection of your heritability?