As many of you have read in the headlines this week, Angelina Jolie revealed that she went through an elective, preventative double mastectomy a few months ago. She shared that her mother died in her 50s of breast cancer, and that she has since discovered that she has a mutation in the BRCA-1 gene that predisposes her to breast and ovarian cancer. She then elected to undergo the double mastectomy to reduce her chances from 85% to less than 5%.
I applaud her decision to "take matters into her own hands" and be proactive.
Let me interject a huge, glaring, loud HOWEVER here...
However, her story is NOT representative of what us "regular" women experience. You know, us, the middle-class, CANCER-SURVIVOR women who do not have maids, chefs, personal assistants, or nannies.
The articles about Angelina quote the actress as saying that "within two days I was feeling great," and that within two weeks she was filming a movie abroad.
Funny, after two days, I was still in the hospital.
After two weeks, I was able to sit up on my own.
Eight months later, I still do not have full range of motion in my right arm.
America has raised her up as this hero that should be praised for being ever-so brave. What the media is not telling is the truth of what her surgeries looked like in comparison with those of us who have had cancer and had to have mastectomies.
First of all, the articles say that she elected to have "nipple-saving" procedures done. Well, that's nice for her that she can keep hers. My apologies for the graphic nature of this, but mine are gone. I have a two-inch scar across each breast that will never disappear fully. I don't know exactly what her surgery looked like, but I assume that her scars will have been covered up by her already existing nipples. So, at the end of the day, I venture a guess (also supported by research) that she looks awfully similar to any woman who had a breast augmentation done. She now has nice, perky boobs, just missing her natural breast tissue, but devoid of the scars that the rest of us have. She does not have to deal with the emotional roller coaster of "losing her breasts," feeling like less of a woman, or any of the emotions I have had to deal with while battling cancer and having to make those decisions. It's very easy to say, "Oh, I don't care that much about my breasts" when they can still look like they always did, if not better than before.
Secondly, the media has said that her "recovery period was a fun time for the whole family." I'm generally an optimist, but I can tell you that while going through it and in hindsight, NONE of that experience could have been described as "fun." The pain was excruciating. I felt like I had been chopped up with a machete. I had drains coming from under my arms. I looked like a science experiment. For the first week, I couldn't move my arms to feed myself, wash myself, or scratch my nose. I couldn't sit up on my own. I slept upright for two weeks in a recliner. It was not a vacation at my multi-million dollar mansion in France, I can assure you that.
You may be thinking that I sound bitter or angry. I'm not. Really, I'm not. I do think what she did was medically sound and commendable. If you don't want the flu, get a flu shot. If you don't want breast cancer, don't have breasts. But please, Hollywood, don't portray her experiences as some holier-than-thou act of extreme bravery and present her on the red carpet with all the pomp and circumstance that true heroes deserve.
At the end of the day, she had a modified boob job. Sorry to burst your bubbles.
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