When I read that Angelina Jolie had undergone a double mastectomy to reduce the risk of breast cancer and ovarian cancer, I felt her fear. It pierced my heart.
Regardless of what you have achieved in your career, when you are faced with the possibility of breast cancer you are reduced to a collection of basic survival instincts. If you are a mother then that will be all that matters as you work out what to do next.
Angelina’s mother died of breast cancer at age 56. When Angelina discovered she carried the gene that gave her a better than average chance of getting breast cancer – doctors estimated the risk was 87% – as a mother to six children she made the decision to put them ahead of vanity and career considerations.
“I wanted to write this to tell other women that the decision to have a mastectomy was not easy. But it is one I am very happy that I made … I can tell my children that they don’t need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer,” she wrote in an opinion piece for The New York Times.
It was a courageous decision but one that every mother could understand. Every time I feel a lump in my breast I immediately think of my children. Over the past seven years I have had to deal with four scares. So far the results have been clear: the lumps were cysts, but I wonder if I would be as brave as Angelina if the mammograms revealed cancer.
Four years ago I wrote about my third experience at the breast clinic on my blog The New 30. I have reproduced it below to give you an insight into the no-win situation for women. It’s clearly a nightmare if the prognosis is cancer treatment or a mastectomy, but for the millions of women who receive the all-clear, there’s also no escaping pain and fear.
I found another lump in my breast this week and I’m absolutely terrified of what the Breast Clinic will tell me this time.
It’s the third big one and although I’m a believer in everything happening in threes (so call me superstitious), I worry that the lumps associated with the previous scares may have felt slightly different to this one.
Three years ago I was diagnosed with lumpy breasts. Essentially, my breasts are made up of ridiculously large cysts – so large that if the clinic drained them all you’d have trouble making me out in a line-up of young boys.
The draining process is particularly uncomfortable. With no anaesthetic to lessen my anxiety (my body tenses which increases the pain quotient considerably), I was forced to grin and bare it as a supersized needle pierced each of my breasts in turn and extracted a whole lot of fluid. My cysts were of the maxi variety so it took a couple of goes per cyst to effectively drain them. My doctor joked that if she removed them all there’d be no breast left so she chose not to drain them all, much to my husband’s delight.
I’ve felt worse pain, I told myself as the needle was forced into my left breast. I’ve given birth twice and there’s nothing more painful than that. The difference is that unless you’re a Scientologist, you’re allowed to scream and shout obscenities when attempting to force another person out of your body. It’s expected of you, almost a surprise if you don’t. Whereas in the quiet of a breast clinic, bellowing in agony and threatening to harm your partner unless the pain stops immediately isn’t really the done thing.
But as with childbirth you’re expected to forget about the pain so that you’ll return for an annual checkup. The thing is, the memory of last year’s draining is still so very fresh for me. I can see the needle coming toward me as I blog. How do I bring myself to go back for another round – even if that is what I’m praying will be the necessary outcome? The alternative is clearly far worse.
Why does everything to do with female health involve a fair amount of discomfort? Yes, we’re clearly the tougher gender but we don’t need to be reminded of it every time we do the right thing by our bodies.
The key message is to use Angelina Jolie’s bravery to motivate your vigilance to regular self examinations. If you find a lump, dealing with it early should be all that matters. The boardroom can wait.