the Angelina Jolie thread
- Thread starter *JJ*
- Start date
Well, I didn't realize that Angie was cutting a chic figure...
Lol in those pictures I could only see her face, neck, hands and shoes.
I know this is a few days later, but I think you are incredibly uneducated about BRCA mutations and breast/ovarian cancer overall. A preventative mastectomy in this case is not considered “unecessary”. It is a choice, but it IS a HIGHLY recommended clincial guideline for women with a BRCA mutation. A BRCA1 mutation, which Angie has, gives her anywhere up to close to 90% lifetime risk of breast cancer, depending on her mutation and family penetrance (her particular mutation and family history shows high penetrance) and 40% ovarian cancer. We all have BRCA1&2, genes, which are tumour supressor genes, but some of us like Angie have mutated copies which make us far more likely to get certain cancers (and earlier in life) as we don’t have two good copies of those tumour suppressor genes.
Even with the BEST medical care, breast cancer (and ovarian cancer) can be fatal. Breast cancer isn’t pink, and it isn’t pretty. Ovarian cancer itself is VERY hard to detect before it is quite advanced and does not have great survival rates, but even breast cancer when caught “early” with screening can be deadly due to the characteristics of that cancer. Also, even WITH screening it is not always caught “early” due to limitations of screening. I know women in the breast cancer and hereditary breast/ovarian cancer community who when the tumour was “caught” while still very, very small in their breast already had metastatic cancer (Stage IV...meaning it had spread beyond breast and is considered terminal). Many BRCA1 breast cancers are particularly aggressive - triple negative and so won’t respond to hormonal therapies, and are more likely to become metastatic and to recur in the first three years after treatment, and have lower five year survival rates than other breast cancer types (77% v 93%).
There is no “cure” for breast or ovarian cancer, no matter how much money you have, just a hope treatment may work well enough to either prevent spread or put you in remission (and even then, it can progress 1, 5, 10 years later). Some are lucky. But a preventative mastectomy reduces risk of a BRCA+ woman of getting breast cancer by over 90% and even up to 100%. It is FAR more successful to reduce her risk of death from breast cancer than treatment after diagnosis would be. And treatment itself can come with many complications (including risk to life from surgery, negative reactions to chemo, etc).
My mother, grandmother, great grandmother - each the only woman in their family sibling groups, all got breast cancer in their 40s and were dead of it in their 50s. Despite “early” detection for my mother and grandmother in particular, surgery, radiation, chemo, ongoing hormone treatment, their cancer all progressed to Stage IV; my great grandmother died during exploratory surgery where they found the cancer had spread all over inside her abdominal organs. Yes, I had a preventative bilateral mastectomy to give my own self a better shot at getting past 60. I don’t consider it brave, but I certainly consider it necessary to reduce the risk of the horrendous end my loved ones suffered as the cancer entered their spines, hips, ribs, liver, lungs, and brain and suffered broken hips, crumbling verterbrae, delusions, and great pain and all sorts of other terrifying complications from lung clots to seizures. My mother died last year, right before Christmas, and it was horrible to watch what happened to such a healthy, vibrant, much loved woman as the cancer took over her body and life. They were the brave ones; I have no interest in being brave, nor would they have wanted me to be if I could avoid it. Angie too watched her mother die of breast cancer, and her aunt of ovarian cancer. I bet she did what she believed was necessary to maybe save herself, and her children from watching, a gruesome end from breast or ovarian cancer.
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Great post and I am very very sorry to hear about the devastating effects it has had on you and your family [emoji29]
RayKay...your post was eloquent and informative. I am sorry about the loss of your relatives, and I appreciate your totally understandable decision to do what you could to avoid the same fate yourself. My mother and aunt both died of breast cancer, although theirs was different...post menopausal, perhaps HRT related. I made decisions in my life to try to avoid the same for myself, but my decisions were much less difficult than yours.
I admire you.
I admire you.
She's not recently this thin, this was going on years before her and Brad broke up, and before her surgeries.
She hasn't looked healthy for a really long time.
She hasn't looked healthy for a really long time.
That is true. And of course to be successful in Hollywood looking thin for the cameras is more important than overall good health. But when excuses are made for her eating disorder it enables her to avoid addressing the unhealthy behavior. I remember reading rumors about Angie years ago saying she was anorexic as a teenager. She may have had it under control for a time but she hasn't in awhile.
Since she is a mother she should be particularly mindful of the message she is sending to her girls about body image. She may tell them everything about them is beautiful but they're going to observe what she does and base their understanding of beauty on what they see.
Eating disorder is a mental disorder. Hard to fix. She needs help, but unless she admits she needs help. Nothing can be done.
I don't really think hiring a PR firm to fix your public image is anything admirable. But maybe that's just me.
Thank you.
I think she has had it for a while now. But if you go back and look at old pictures of her, she is a healthier weight. It's kind of amazing she was able to have kids.
Isn't life interesting how Aniston spent her 30s and early 40s finding herself, working on her inner confidence under the paparazzi spotlight. Meanwhile, now at 42, Angie, who's had everything, regresses and is now trying to find herself/ reinvent herself, and figure life out.