Monthly Archives: June 2013

“I could have sworn she had boobs!”

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Last night I had a very unusual, albeit humorous encounter with a coworker.

Here is some background on the incident: My company moved offices this week, from our location on Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica to a larger space a few miles away. To help us properly bid farewell to our old home, the company hosted a karaoke party at one of our favorite locales, the King’s Head. There was liquor involved.

In general, most of my coworkers know about my mastectomy and reconstruction. Last year I shared a bit about it during a “Think Pink” party, a fundraiser for a breast cancer charity walk the company sponsored. And a few months ago in a team meeting I gave an instructional presentation about running a blog, which focused on how exactly I run this blog. I made the conscious decision before my mastectomy to tell people about it, coworkers included, and they’ve all been extremely supportive and flexible, for which I am grateful.

When a coworker approached me at the bar yesterday and sheepishly mumbled “I have to tell you something,” I didn’t know what to expect. We do not work together closely, and I don’t know him particularly well, but we had talked the week before at a party, so I assumed it was related to that.

“I saw you on HuffPo Live,” he confessed. I was not expecting to hear that. Two days after Angelina Jolie’s announcement in the New York Times, I participated in a segment on HuffPost Live about my decision to have a prophylactic double mastectomy.

“Were you browsing yourself or did you see a tweet about it?” I asked.

“No, I go on the Huffington Post all the time. I saw something about Angelina Jolie and then clicked and said…’Whoa! I know her!’ and it was you!”

And now for the kicker:

“I was watching it and I stopped for a moment and thought, I could have sworn she had boobs! Last time I saw her, she definitely had boobs…And I looked around behind me but no one else was around the office but I wanted to ask them, ‘Doesn’t she have boobs?'”

I lost it. I started cracking up. After howling for a bit, I explained to him that I’ve really “always had boobs” and that I just “replaced the stuffing inside.” And I also said that my plastic surgeon obviously did a good job because he wouldn’t have known had he not watched the HuffPost Live segment.

I must applaud his courage to approach me about it. It was certainly an unusual way, but hey, why not? I’m glad he did.

But on that note, I am finally posting the links to all of the interviews I did following Angelina Jolie’s prophylactic mastectomy announcement. The morning after AJ’s New York Times column went live, I received a very early phone call from a sorority sister at ABC News, asking to interview me for a story. A few minutes later, I spoke on the phone with a woman at the UK’s Daily Mail. Then later that morning I saw an email from a friend in Germany who had written an excerpt for a newspaper about me.

The days following AJ’s announcement were pretty crazy for me. I received an enormous amount of traffic to the blog and quite a few media inquiries. Here’s a round-up of all of the publicity:

It was pretty freakin’ sweet. The on-air interview for Australia’s Weekend Sunrise was interesting; I was at the Beverly Hills studio at 3 pm on Friday, streaming live to Australia, where it was already Saturday morning. Here are a few pics:

Here I am waiting to stream into Weekend Sunrise. Notice the great "view" of Los Angeles behind me.

Here I am waiting to stream into Weekend Sunrise. Notice the great “view” of Los Angeles behind me.

weekendsunrise3

And here’s a pic a coworker snagged of me during my HuffPost Live interview, which she tweeted. I promise I was not bored, just intently listening!

huffpostlivetweet

Two big wins for the high-risk breast cancer community

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First, Facebook clarified their stance (link NSFW) on mastectomy photos:

“We have long allowed mastectomy photos to be shared on Facebook, as well as educational and scientific photos of the human body and photos of women breastfeeding,” Facebook said in a prepared statement. “We only review or remove photos after they have been reported to us by people who see the images in their News Feeds or otherwise discover them. On occasion, we may remove a photo showing mastectomy scarring either by mistake, as our teams review millions of pieces of content daily, or because a photo has violated our terms for other reasons. As a reminder, our terms stipulate that we generally do not allow nudity, with some exceptions as laid out above and here, consistent with other platforms that have many young users.”

This is great news for everyone in organized Facebook groups such as Young Previvors, the group I have come to regard as my safe haven throughout (and even after) my surgeries. One of the most valuable aspects of these communities is being able to see what to expect following surgery, and it’s wonderful that women–some of whom would otherwise have no access to post-mastectomy photos–can share with each other as a means of support.

And in other big news, today the United States Supreme Court ruled against the patenting of human genes in the case Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc.

From the SCOTUS blog: “The Court held that a naturally occurring DNA segment is a product of nature and not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated, but manmade cDNA is patent eligible because it is not naturally occurring. The case involved the well-known BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, which can involve mutations that increase the likelihood of breast cancer.  The ruling is significant for a variety of companies (including Myriad) that hold important DNA patents.”

This decision will result in lower costs for testing for gene mutations such as BRCA1 and BRCA2, making it much easier for women (and men!) to access the test. It will also mean more money and motivation for research.

I’m a happy camper!