Owner of LNH Edit, Laura Nolan Horgan changed the day she found out she was BRCA positive. She describes the immediate fallout of discovering she had a gene that put her at higher risk of cancer – but how it ultimately made her a more resilient, grateful person.

When Cork councillor Fiona Ryan discovered she was carrying the BRCA1 gene, putting her at a high risk of developing breast cancer, she decided to undergo a pre-emptive double mastectomy. Helen O'Callaghan reports