The Susan G. Komen Foundation estimates a total of 231,840 new breast cancer cases in 2015, with 40,290 resulting in deaths this year—among U.S. women alone. Although these statistics are startling, hope lies in the fact that the five-year survival rate of early-stage breast cancer is 99 percent,...
I was laying alone in a foreign country in a foreign bed when I found out I had tested positive for the “breast cancer gene,” or what most of you probably know as “what Angelina Jolie has.” It’s September 2013 and I’m at the Toronto International Film Festival promoting my film PROXY and I have...
Cancer isn’t easy. I know it very well. When I was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 1998 at 24-years-old, everything changed. I endured a flood of emotions, especially significant fear and concerns about mortality. In a new world with tenderness and trepidation, parts of me moved with shakiness...
When my mother’s breast cancer metastasized in 1991, she was overwhelmed with depression and guilt. She was a failure, she confided in a relative, because she couldn’t muster the optimism to visualize her tumor shrinking. Her death left me with little tolerance for the popular notion that cancer...
PSAs about cancer are in abundance; everywhere you look, alarm bells ring with pundits who warn of cancer causing agents. It’s all fair and fine, seeing as various types of cancer affect an unprecedented percentage of people in America, and globally. However, it gets complicated when there’s...
