An op ed this morning in the NY Times. Well worth reading in it's entirety.
MY MOTHER fought cancer
for almost a decade and died at 56. She held out long enough to meet
the first of her grandchildren and to hold them in her arms. But my
other children will never have the chance to know her and experience how
loving and gracious she was.
We often speak of “Mommy’s mommy,” and I find myself trying to explain
the illness that took her away from us. They have asked if the same
could happen to me. I have always told them not to worry, but the truth
is I carry a “faulty” gene, BRCA1, which sharply increases my risk of
developing breast cancer and ovarian cancer.
My doctors estimated that I had an 87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer, although the risk is different in the case of each woman.
Only a fraction of breast cancers result from an inherited gene mutation. Those with a defect in BRCA1 have a 65 percent risk of getting it, on average.
Once I knew that this was my reality, I decided to be proactive and to
minimize the risk as much I could. I made a decision to have a preventive double mastectomy. I started with the breasts, as my risk of breast cancer is higher than my risk of ovarian cancer, and the surgery is more complex.
Jolie then goes into some detail about the procedures, and finishes with this –
I acknowledge that there are many wonderful holistic doctors working on
alternatives to surgery. My own regimen will be posted in due course on
the Web site of the Pink Lotus Breast Center. I hope that this will be
helpful to other women.
Breast cancer
alone kills some 458,000 people each year, according to the World
Health Organization, mainly in low- and middle-income countries. It has
got to be a priority to ensure that more women can access gene testing
and lifesaving preventive treatment, whatever their means and
background, wherever they live. The cost of testing for BRCA1 and BRCA2,
at more than $3,000 in the United States, remains an obstacle for many
women.
I choose not to keep my story private because there are many women who
do not know that they might be living under the shadow of cancer. It is
my hope that they, too, will be able to get gene tested, and that if
they have a high risk they, too, will know that they have strong
options.
Life comes with many challenges. The ones that should not scare us are the ones we can take on and take control of.
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