CNN has posted an Associated Press (AP) article about Christina Applegate’s public statements about her battle with breast cancer, her decision to have a double mastectomy (even though cancer was found in only one breast), her plans for reconstructive surgery, her love of life and her humor.

Some key quotes:

On the choice to have a double mastectomy: 
"I just wanted to kind of be rid of it… so this was the choice I made, and it was a tough one."

On her forthcoming breast reconstruction:
"I’m going to have cute boobs till I’m 90, so there’s that," she joked in the interview, "I’ll have the best boobs in the nursing home. I’ll be the envy of all the ladies around the bridge table."

And on the ups and downs on her experience:
"Sometimes, you know, I cry, and sometimes I scream, and I get really angry, and I get really like, you know, into wallowing in self-pity sometimes," she said. "And I think that’s — it’s all part of healing, and anyone who’s going through it out there, it’s OK to cry. It’s OK to fall on the ground and just scream if you want to."

and

"I’ve laughed so much in the last three weeks," she said. "I love living, and I really love my life, and I knew that from this moment on it was only going to be good that was going to be coming. Yeah, I’ll face challenges, but you can’t get any darker than where I’ve been. So knowing that in my soul gave me the strength to just say, ‘I have to get out there and make this a positive.’ "

Read the full article here.

[Image via this site.]

You can learn more about breast cancer from the National Cancer Institute, here on their web site.

Bookmark To

Thanks to reader Dave for pointing out "Difference Maker" Jason Grunstra who started a web site that allows women to raise money toward getting breast implants. See the Colbert Report video about it here:

Bookmark To

Knicker Picker allows you to choose a model and then "dress her" with lingerie so that you can see what it might look like on you. It’s a great idea except that the three models are all pretty slender… it would be good to have a wider range of body types available. Perhaps as they move out of Beta, they will go in that direction.

Bookmark To

In this podcast, I answer a question from a Kinsey Confidential reader who wants to know what to do with a partner who is obsessed with her breasts.

[Above image via this site.]

Bookmark To

"Diamonds, as De Beers and a James Bond novel once suggested, are meant to last forever. But breast implants often do not." - Natasha Singer, in this New York Times piece about the lifespan of breast implants

Sometimes I worry that one day I will give in and get breast implants. I like my boobs! I think they’re cool. And yet I know they will age… and droop… especially if I have babies and breastfeed. But isn’t one of the neat things about the human body that you can see the imprints in your life in the way that it wears over time? There’s something a bit creepy to me about 60 year old women with breasts that a perkier than a 20 year old who stuffs herself into a push-up bra. Not even 20 year olds have perky breasts - or at least not in the locker room when their push-up bras are off. I wish that we could publicly appreciate aging bodies more than we seem to.

The irony thing is that every generation seems to make it harder on themselves. By criticizing people for being old/fat/saggy/wrinkled we create a culture that perpetuates jokes against people for being old/fat/saggy/wrinkled and then when we become old/fat/saggy/wrinkled, we become the butt of the younger generation’s jokes about being old/fat/saggy/wrinkled. [Cue J.T.’s What Goes Around Comes Back Around]

Here’s another quote from the breast implant article:

“Your implants may last less than 10 years or more than 10 years, but when you start having problems with them, your health insurance is unlikely to cover the M.R.I. tests or the reoperations,” said Carol Ciancutti-Leyva, the director of a 2007 anti-implant documentary called “Absolutely Safe.” “It can be a very expensive proposition, especially if you are young.”

Scary stuff. I wonder if Victoria Beckham will come discuss why she (supposedly) removed her implants - I think she looks better without them anyway, given the wonders she does with the push-up bra that her publicist said she typically wears. And when she lets them hang down more naturally in low-cut dresses? Stunning. It reminds me of the original Charlies Angels when it was considered beautiful in the 60s and 70s for women to show the natural form of their breasts.

Bookmark To