Anne and Angelina
It was around 9 a.m. on the morning of May 15, 2013, in Quebec City, with spring barely having sprung, as is typical in that chilly Nordic provincial capital. Our phone jangled, and a familiar, mellifluous voice purred at the other end of the line. The caller was Jacquie Czernin, the host of CBC Breakaway, wishing to speak with my wife Anne.
I had worked with Jacquie for 10 years (1987-1997) as a part-time writer/ broadcaster, in particular telling personal stories that later formed the foundation of a book.
Jacquie wanted to interview Anne about Angelina Jolie.
The previous day, the celebrated Hollywood icon had published an op-ed in the New York Times detailing what she called “my medical choice.” Due to an extensive family history of breast and ovarian cancer and having the BRCA1 gene mutation that dramatically raised her risk of cancer, Jolie made the decision to undergo a preventive double mastectomy.
The Angelina Jolie effect: One year later | Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
Angelina Jolie, inherited breast cancer and the BRCA1 gene – Cancer Research UK – Cancer News
The story was all over the news.
Knowing that Anne was also afflicted with the BRCA1 mutation, Jacquie was seeking her comments about the celebrity’s surgical choice.
The problem was that Anne had never heard of Angelina Jolie. She eschewed the ambient media circus in favour of reading and re-reading Jane Austen novels. Our two sons were often embarrassed and nonplussed by how far their mom was out of the loop.
When Jacquie informed my flustered spouse that Angelina Jolie was not some obscure country and western singer from rural Témiscouata, but rather a superstar of the silver screen and erstwhile partner of Brad Pitt – whom Anne had never heard of either – they settled on an interview for that very day.
Anne hates being in the spotlight and only agreed to go on air in solidarity with other women sharing her plight.
So it was that Anne told her story: how a great many of her aunts and female cousins on her mother’s side, as well as her own mom, had died at a very early age of ovarian cancer, and how in 2002, when Anne was barely 44 years of age, her sister had insisted that she undergo the gene test to establish whether she carried the mutation.
(Our family physician at first refused to authorize the procedure, and had to be browbeaten and cajoled before finally relenting. He felt that such testing put an unfair burden on the State.)
Once the mutation was detected, a valiant team of specialists took over the case and recommended an immediate ovariotomy, which given Anne’s family history may well have saved her life.
Fast forward to 2014. For over a decade, Anne had been strictly monitored because she was still at very high risk for breast cancer.
The specialists recommended against a preventive double mastectomy…until they didn’t. The protocols had changed, they asserted in 2014.
Anne was convinced to undergo the “Angelina Jolie” procedure.
But in the wake of the Jolie revelations, so many women with the mutation were opting for the surgery that Anne’s specialist was overwhelmed and shunted her off to another surgeon…who adamantly argued against the double mastectomy, citing Anne’s family history of ovarian not breast cancer and her advancing age, which supposedly lowered her possibility of being afflicted.
So Anne finally opted not to follow the example of Angelina, but instead lives with an oncological sword of Damocles hovering above her head.
Damocles | Legend, Sword, & Facts | Britannica
It’s definitely the Pitts.
Your friend,
Robert
Robert McBryde – robertmcbrydeauthor.com
