Clemente Ferrer
The Spanish Association Against Cancer has spread various information campaigns on breast carcinoma, designed for the purpose to understand the desirability of early diagnosis, to fight breast cancer.
“My mother fought cancer for almost a decade and died at 56.” So begins the article under the title “My medical choice“, which has been published by the newspaper The New York Times and written by the famous Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie, who reveals that he has gone through a double mastectomy to avoid the same disease as her mother, Marcheline Bertrand, suffered.
“My doctors estimated that I had an 87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer”, she says. With this information, she decided to remove both breasts to reduce the risk.
Thus, Angelina Jolie, at 37 years, has undergone two surgeries, as she said, to reduce the chances of developing breast cancer by 87% to 5%.
“I wanted to write this to tell other women that the decision to have a mastectomy was not easy“, says Jolie in The New York Times. “But it is one I am very happy that I made. I can tell my children that they don’t need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer”.
Angelina is not short in words of thanks to Brad Pitt, who has six children with her. “I am fortunate to have a partner, Brad Pitt, who is so loving and supportive”, she writes. “I feel empowered that I made a strong choice that in no way diminishes my femininity. Brad was at the Center, where I was treated, for every minute of the surgeries. We managed to find moments to laugh together. We knew this was the right thing to do for our family and that it would bring us closer. And it has.”, says the actress.
Angelina Jolie reported that the surgery lasted for eight hours. Nine weeks later, the final surgery was completed with the reconstruction of the breast with an implant. After the operation, the children only see small scars. “Everything else is just Mommy, the same as she always was. And they know that I love them and will do anything to be with them as long as I can”.
In the United States, news of the discovery of breast cancers in the wives of then President G. Ford and Vice President Rockefeller, led to an increase in the reviews, so that many women attended mammograms alarmed and so were detected incipient cancers that otherwise would not have discovered.
Author and journalist Clemente Ferrer has led a distinguished career in Spain in the fields of advertising and public relations. He is currently President of the European Institute of Marketing. He can be reached at clementeferrer3@gmail.com