Brave
- Thread starter Walter
- Start date
Having to sacrifice pieces of yourself for your health is very difficult, and a terrible blow to your self esteem when you carry the scars. Vanity is a very powerful thing. I feel for anyone who has to go through it, especially on such a large scale.
Angelina Jolie though can pay for the best reconstruction. You won't be seeing her flat chested on the red carpet. Her mother died of ovarian cancer, I think I would sooner have the ovaries taken out, they are harder to check for cancer, boobs you just stick in the mammogram machine. I do give her credit for telling it in public, hopefully it will help women to look after their own health.
Yep. I admire Jolie for having the fortitude to do what she thought best (and for tugging on an occasional chain here and there).
Can't say much for her choice in hubbies, but I do like her first hubby's acting abilities.Paying for reconstruction doesn't take away the pain from it, and no reconstruction is scar free, pain free.
As for having ovaries removed... the chances of breast cancer were 87%, ovarian 50%. Mastectomy removes the biggest risk, with the least adverse health impact.
When I heard the news this morning I felt bad for her just as one woman to another.
And I also thought, the human leveler has struck and it made me reflect upon how tough the decision had to have been for her and her husband.
It doesn't matter your life style or popularity, the frailty of the human body must be dealt by all of us sooner or later.
I pray for her that it will work. One can still get breast cancer after the procedure, it is just greatly reduced exponentially.
And I also thought, the human leveler has struck and it made me reflect upon how tough the decision had to have been for her and her husband.
It doesn't matter your life style or popularity, the frailty of the human body must be dealt by all of us sooner or later.
I pray for her that it will work. One can still get breast cancer after the procedure, it is just greatly reduced exponentially.
I can empathize. I had a "lump scare" a few years ago and even just contemplating having to contemplate the procedure was a tough one.
I feel sorry enough for her, but I feel even sorrier who either can't afford the reconstruction after the pain of surgery, or have to endure the pain of cancer because they couldn't afford medical insurance. Having had relatives who died from cancer I understand it is painful, curing it before it happens as Jolie did, is minor pain compared to the cancer.
Yep, the fact that a woman would voluntarily have her breasts removed to avoid it says all that.
Gene testing- 3 K- And Drs. state that they cannot always get all the breast tissue. So the risk is still there - lower risk though.
I think it is a horrible decision for a woman to make. The emotional pain, the surgery, risk of infection.
Angelina Jolie: A double mastectomy isn’t as simple as she makes it sound - The Globe and Mail
Journalist Lizzie Stark wrote of the psychological effects of losing her real breasts – something Jolie only glosses over. “I am not just losing my breasts, I’m losing the way my breasts look in my favourite shirt, the organs that make me a sexual, curvy woman, and I’m losing them unjustly at an age when most of my friends are getting engaged, married or pregnant,” Stark wrote in 2010, just months before she was scheduled to have the procedure done.
And Guardian journalist Emma Gilbey Keller wrote of the toll the procedure had on her body afterward, including nausea, vertigo and an infection on one of her breasts. “None of it has been easy,” she wrote. “I’ve been on anti-anxiety medication since I heard the word ‘biopsy.’ ”
Like any surgery, there are risks to undergoing a mastectomy, including infection, fluid build-up at the surgical site, blood loss, blood clots and pain, according to FORCE, a non-profit dedicated to helping people cope with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. And because even the best surgeon will never be able to remove all breast tissue, a small risk of developing breast cancer anyway will always remain.
On top of that, there’s the issue of access. Jolie wrote that, in the United States, the cost of genetic testing alone cost $3,000 (U.S.) – something which, she admits, “remains an obstacle for many women.” (Here in Canada, it’s less of an issue: In Ontario, for example, OHIP covers BRCA1 and 2 testing for women who are at risk for breast cancer).
All four women – Jolie, Keller, Stark and Applegate – say that, despite it all, they’re glad to have had the surgery. “Most, even those who had surgical complications or developed a more negative body image, say they’d elect to have it again because it brought them peace of mind,” a researcher at the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center told Shape Magazine.
But still, “I wish there had been another option, though,” Keller wrote. “I wish there was a way of eliminating these cells without taking out so much of my body.”
I faced a similar problem when I found out I was at risk for brain cancer, and I took the same solution.
It's made remarkably little difference in my life.
It's made remarkably little difference in my life.
A lobotomy???? OMG
That explains a lot...................
Nah. Lobotomy's just the frontal lobes. I got the whole thing scooped out.
You may laugh now, but wait 'til the Zombie Apocalypse!
Her business. Everypony has to make her own choices on risks and actions. There is no right or wrong on this, just right or wrong for her.
Many who have made this decision also look at family medical history- It can and does run rampant thru some families.
Still, if that's the case and in AJ's case get regular checkups, there's no way I will remove any part of my body, be it limb or even organ on the chance I might develop cancer.
I feel even sorrier for women who think their breasts are the essence of themselves. They were put there to feed babies, nothing more nothing less. Once those boobs have fed the babies they serve no purpose other than as toys for men. Boobs do not make a woman sexy, her brain does.
I recall 1 family, mother died for it, 3 sisters came down with it - not all survived - the 4th went for the radical surgery.