PREVIVOR: A person who is not diagnosed with cancer, but has survived the predisposition, or higher risk, of cancer due to a genetic mutation and/or strong family history. After being armed with this information, a previvor can make informed choices prior to a cancer diagnosis.

Friday, March 23, 2012

Glitz, Glamour, and Giuliana's Mastectomy

Unless you've been living under a rock recently, I'm sure you've heard about Giuilana Ranic's breast cancer diagnosis and subsequent mastectomy. Let me first say, she is a beautiful woman and I'm so sorry she had to go through that diagnosis. I wish her nothing but the best from here on out. I'm so glad I was never in her shoes, and I never had to go through getting that scary BC diagnosis thrown around.

I finally opened my issue of Glamour today and saw that there was a story titled "Diary of a Mastectomy" by Bill and Giuiliana Rancic. Hmm...this should be interesting. You can read the story here :

Diary of a Mastectomy

All in all, I thought it was a good story. Kudos to her, and she gets mad props for putting her journey out there. Except...it really wasn't. I had some issues with several parts of the story. For instance, it never said WHAT type of reconstruction she had. Did she had one-step direct to implants? lat flap? DIEP? tissue expanders to impants? SGAP? She says in the story that she went back to work 2 weeks later, schmoozing it up with Ryan Seacrest and giving interviews to George Clooney. Two weeks after MY mastectomy I wouldn't have gone with 100 miles of Clooney. No way.

I did like how she admitted that she wasn't all that educated about mastectomies and breast cancer and learned that it's not as super scary and wasn't the death sentence that she thought. I like that she talks about how she flip flopped about the decision. I also like how supportive her husband was in going through it with her. I think it was great that she was honest about how she felt when she woke up, and how apprenhensive she was about getting out of bed.  And I liked that she put a picture of herself right after surgery.

However, I felt that some of it was played up a bit. Like when she refers to her drains as "a feeling like there are knives stabbing you from the inside. They hurt so bad." Well...they really don't. Yeah they SUCK. Literally and figuratively. And it's awakard trying to move around with them, and sometimes they can start to tug and pull when they get caught on something. But knives stabbing you from the inside?

One part of the article I really had a problem with was when she mentioned reading a lot of blogs (could she have stumbled upon this one? :) ) but then said that Bill stopped her. He jumped in to say that the internet was "full of women who were giving medical advice who had no right to be."

Well! Mr. Rancic THAT was NEVER my intention! But let me put forth a disclaimer right now- This blog is no way medical advice. I'm merely putting out my story in hopes that it will help someone else. So, yes I did get a teensy bit offended by that comment.

Like I said, all in all I think she did a good thing by putting her story out there. But I think it may have been a tad more realistic.

The moral of the story is that no two journeys are alike. Some people may glide through the process like Giuliana. Others may stumble along, and end up crawling when they get to the end of the road. But, the main thing to remember is that you will get through it.

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