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A plan to live to 100

A few years ago, Cari set a real goal: to live to 100. She didn't say it casually. She meant it. And she started building toward it by eating well, staying active, and keeping up with every recommended screening. She wasn't waiting for something to go wrong. She was getting ahead of it.

That mindset led her to Function.

She was drawn to the depth. More tests. More context. More visibility into her own biology than routine care had ever offered.

I wanted to know more. I wanted access to information that wasn't usually offered.

From every angle, Cari looked like someone doing everything right.

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“I wasn’t prepared for that phone call”

When her first results came in, Cari was fascinated by how much she could see.  Her Biological Age, hormones, inflammation, and signals across systems she'd never been able to track before.

One marker caught her attention: Hs-CRP, a key indicator of systemic inflammation, was elevated. She knew it was something she should pay attention to.

Around the same time, she decided to add the Galleri® Multi-Cancer Test through Function.

She expected to learn something she could file away and monitor over time.

What she got instead was a direct call from a Function. It was a physician.

"I wasn't prepared for that phone call." 

The test had identified a signal linked to ovarian cancer.

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Not a single symptom

Cari brought the results to her primary care doctor. He took them seriously and ordered the follow-up testing based on the insights included in her Function results.

What came next moved fast.

A subsequent blood test for a specific tumor marker came back elevated. An ultrasound revealed a large tumor centered on one ovary. By early January, she was at Mayo Clinic. Within days, she was in surgery.

And through all of it, not a single symptom.

I was completely asymptomatic. I was in good shape. I had no idea.

Once surgery began, the full picture came into focus. It wasn’t benign. The cancer had already spread.

Her final pathology: Stage 3 ovarian cancer.

Her doctors told her she was likely weeks away from a far more advanced spread.

A silent killer

There is a reason ovarian cancer is called a silent killer. It can develop for years with few or no recognizable signs. Standard screenings don't catch it. Symptoms often don't appear until it's already advanced.

Cari couldn’t believe that she discovered it just in time. In time for surgery. In time for treatment. In time for a different outcome.

Without that test, she believes she would not have found it before Stage 4.

Function saved my life. Not because it treated my cancer. But because it gave me information I wouldn't have had until it was too late.

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A life with agency

Three weeks after surgery, Cari started chemotherapy. Then more monitoring, more labs, more waiting.

She felt one of the hardest things about cancer wasn't the treatment. It was what it takes from you mentally. 

Which is why Function meant more to her now than ever before. Not because it made the uncertainty disappear. But because it gave her something to hold onto: agency. And the ability to keep asking questions instead of waiting for answers to find her.

"If you have the chance to find something in time, take it. There's no amount of money that can buy your life back."

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