Angelina Jolie Had Preventative Double Mastectomy
 

Good for her for being proactive about her health!

http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2013...ncer-risk?lite

I have heard it about 12 times already this am. I've been up about three hours. Must be a slow news day.

She did a good job with that, because younger people can get it to

I have had the test she wrote about. I don't have the gene and neither does my two adult DDs. I know that doesn't mean we are protected but it helps to ease worry about it.

And good for her for going public with it, showing that health is more important than looks, even to a movie star.

What a lot of people don't know is that you can still get breast cancer because they can not remove all the breast tissue. I saw a young lady at M.D. Anderson Cancer Hospital that had her breast removed because of the gene. She still got breast cancer. She was having major medical issues resulting from the chemo treatment. However, less breast tissue probably does reduce the risk.

I think she said her risk went down from 80something percent to 5%. I wonder if she also had her ovaries removed, because that was a 50% chance of cancer. Not an easy decision at all.

She has said she will consider having them removed later.

Movie star or not, she was brave to do what needed to be done, and opened up a whole new conversation for the rest of us. Everyone is talking about it, so now it's not in the closet anymore.