Screw the BRCA2 Mutation: My Breasts are Fabulous and I’m Keeping Them.
October 14th, 2010 by Cyndi Freeman
In honor of breast cancer awareness month, I thought I’d share this video of my personal story with you about my breast cancer scare and how having the BRCA2 genetic mutation (the Breast Cancer Gene) lead to me twirling tassels on the burlesque stage.
I don’t want to give too much away here, so all I’ll say is that I am not having my breasts removed. I like my breasts. A LOT. My boobs are fabulous and I’m keeping them.
I performed this story at The Story Collider at Pacific Standard in Park Slope — also home to our show The Standard Issues
Side Effects – Cyndi Freeman from The Story Collider on Vimeo.
Filed under Beauty, BRCA, breast cancer, breast cancer awareness month, Burlesque, Cyndi Freeman, preventative mastectomy, Uncategorized, Video, Weirdness & WTF, Women's health having 3 Comments »
October 15th, 2010 at 10:50 pm
Have you thought about WHY all of these medical professionals advise such a drastic approach. They know it is drastic, there is a good reason that is the standard of care for a positive BRCA test result. You can always get a boob job after. You would be alive, and not less of a woman. Perhaps you should put some consideration into these things before you promote such ignorance towards science. Explain your concerns to your doc, ask for a less aggressive approach. Please stop judging and mocking people that value their lives over their breasts. Only one of those can be replaced.
October 16th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
@e — I can respect your opinion here, but I’m not so sure that Cyndi’s story mocked people that chose the mastectomy approach. This is a highly personal decision, and Cyndi’s story seemed to me to be about HER vehement and powerful response – It’s a story on a stage, not a personal prescription for how everyone should live their lives. I can tell you from personal experience that a medical establishment does not necessarily allow room for nuance or preference and acts like it’s the most normal thing in the world to chop and move on, as though that doesn’t interrupt your life somehow.
That attitude is more terrifying than what come out of it, frankly: the notion that we are just machines with parts that can be streamlined and replaced and it’s somehow a sign of weakness or ignorance to try and hang onto the bodies we have for as long as possible.
Other people feel differently, and other people have different attitudes and different options. But those are their lives, their choices, and their stories.
October 17th, 2010 at 7:15 am
Well, Cyndi says in the piece that she respects these women making their own decisions and that what she wants is to have her own decisions respected. That is the point she makes.
For my own part, I would say this. It is dangerous for anyone to hand over the reins to the medical industry, just as it would be to hand them over to a religion or political ideology. But it is especially dangerous for women. The medical establishment used to perform hysterectomies on women to treat “female hysteria,” they also favored the use of lobotomies for the same ailment. Women have come along way and so has medical science, but if you think that the end all be all solution has been found, that women can be certain they are receiving treatment free of bias, or that the science is infallible and the best anyone should expect, then you have already surrendered your own advocacy on a dangerous level.
That isn’t Cyndi talking, that’s me.
For Cyndi’s thoughts, watch the video and don’t be deafened by the rush of your own angry assumptions.