I never really write about celebrities, but I wanted to say that I take back every snarky thing that I have ever said about Angelina Jolie. She's amazing and let's face it, I was probably just jealous when I said those things anyway.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
This morning I got on to Twitter to find my feed clogged with slightly varying versions of the same screaming headline: Angelina Jolie Gets Double Mastectomy. I'm not hugely into celebrity news, but this shocking headline was coming at me from every direction of my social media life, in all-caps with excessive exclamation points. So, like the good little internet sheep that I am, I picked a link and clicked on it, which led me to Jolie's post in the New York Times. In a nutshell, Jolie carries a gene called BRCA1 (which she refers to as a "faulty" gene) that puts her at a ridiculously high risk of getting breast and/or ovarian cancer. Rather than sit around for cancer to strike, she chose to be proactive and had a preventative double-mastectomy. She briefly described the surgical process and why bothering with any of this at all was important to her. I sat dumbfounded at my computer, as all of the work I had planned on doing this morning came to a screeching halt. I read the article, cried and then reread it and cried harder.
I thought the best part of the piece was when Jolie wrote about how she watched her mom suffer through cancer and knew firsthand what a horrific thing it would be for her kids to endure. Her mom was only 56 when she passed away and if that was the case for me, that fact would always be hanging over my head every single day. Jolie wrote that she would do anything to get more time with her children, which I relate to for obvious reasons. I would undergo surgery to become the next Wolverine if it meant I got to spend 30 extra seconds on this planet with my kids, so yeah, I get it. Overall, I felt like this whole piece made her seem so human, less like the perfect, leggy movie star and more like the mom who loves her kids and would do anything for them. And there's nothing not to love about that.
I'm sure that a preventative double mastectomy is a ridiculously expensive procedure, which most of us probably wouldn't be able to afford (though I'll spare you my liberal, tree-hugging opinion on the state of health care in America...for now). But if having a preventative double-mastectomy could significantly decrease your risk of breast cancer, would you do it? Is this taking advantage of the awesomeness of modern medicine, science, and preventative care or are you just playing God? Just some food for thought.
Either way, I feel that I have a whole new respect for someone that I (wrongfully) blew off as just another Hollywood actress gazillionaire. It might sound cynical, but people don't surprise me very much sometimes, and it's nice to be proven wrong (in a good way) and also to remember that what you see on your TV isn't the full story. My mom always said that you "never know what goes on behind closed doors" and that lesson applies here perfectly.
Above all, I think that both having the surgery and writing about it was brave, honest, and downright bad ass. Like a real life Lara Croft.
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