BodyLove: Elise warns against Jolie's Mastectomy

I know it has been quite some time since I have shared some BodyLove. Reason... Quality over quantity and my latest post is a guest post by Elise Fernandez. A friend of mine who survived breast cancer, a cancer activist, a mother, a fighter, a trooper, a brave hearted strong woman. In this post Elise shares her opinions about the controversy surrounding Tomb Raider star and humanitarian, Angelina Jolie's double mastectomy.

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The article of Angelina Jolie and her brave decision to have a bilateral mastectomy concerns me. While every woman or man has the right to decide how they deal with being a high risk candidate for cancer to attack, I do believe that Angelina is sending out the wrong message. She speaks about her surgery as if she walked into the hospital and a few days later, like a super hero character in one of her movies, she walked out again.

While this is true for her, the reality is that for other women, who really suffer from breast cancer, who struggle through poverty, unemployment, disability, chemotherapy, abuse, abandonment, children who are substance abusers, and many more challenges that they have to deal with during fighting cancer, this is not the case. One does not just carry on with life after a bilateral mastectomy. Your breasts are connected to the rest of your body and when something is removed from the body it does not function exactly as it used to.

The scary part is that so many women will now be inspired to lose their breasts because they can just have new ones implanted. Be very careful when making this decision as it is not what it is "cut out to be". Medical aids and private care facilities are making a fortune by having people believe that this is the way to go. I understand that Angelina lost her mom to cancer, and she has every right to her decision. But she did not have cancer and she has all the money in the world that could increase her healing process. What's next on the cards? A multi million dollar movie about how she had to have her breast removed?

Please do not be deceived and do not believe the hype. As for our own media and newspaper houses, they need to stop perpetuating and re-enforcing ideologies and so called role models that influences the decisions of African people. For the rich, that type of surgery and it's after effects are a walk in the park. But cancer is not something to be glamorized and since I've had it, what I also find disturbing is the millions of funds that the awareness of the disease generates, only to land into the bank accounts of a select group of people who enrich themselves through this very important cause.

BodyLove,
Elise