opinion
Karen E. H. Skinazi
When a Breast Cancer Diagnosis
Knocked Me Down, a Network of
Jewish Women Lifted Me Up
Getty Images
O n the way home from
the hospital where I was
given my diagnosis of
grade 2 invasive lobular breast
cancer, I directed my husband,
through my tears, to stop at the
kosher store.

“I don’t want to see anyone
right now,” I said, knowing the
inevitability of running into
someone we knew in the small
Jewish community where we live,
“so can you go in?” He pulled into
the parking lot. “We need challah,”
I reminded him. It was Thursday,
after all. The next evening was
Shabbat. Time doesn’t stand still
for cancer.

My hospital appointment took
place two days after the front page of The New York
Times declared: “When Should Women Get Regular
Mammograms: At 40, U.S. Panel Now Says.” I was
48. Breast cancer has long been the second most
common cancer for women, after skin cancer. It is
also the most lethal after lung cancer. Statistically,
though, most women affected are postmenopausal,
so unless there was a specific reason to test early,
women were screened regularly from the age of 50.

Now, the advice has changed. Breast cancer is rising
in younger women. For women in their 40s, the rate
of increase between 2015 and 2019 doubled from
the previous decade to 2% per year.

Why is this happening? Air pollution? Microplastics?
Chemicals in our food? We don’t know.

In the days following my appointment, there was a
proliferation of articles about the topic. Importantly,
doctors explained that the cancer women are
diagnosed with in their 40s tends to be a more
aggressive type of cancer. Cancers in premenopausal
women grow faster; many breast cancers, like
mine, are hormone sensitive. (Got estrogen? Bad
luck for you.)
When I posted the news about my diagnosis —
on Facebook, because I’m an oversharing type — I
was stunned by the number of friends my age, more
discreet about their lives, who sent me messages
to tell me they had recently gone through the
same thing. Everyone had advice. “If you can do
a lumpectomy, you’re very lucky. It’s not a major
operation, and you’ll preserve your breast.” “Cut it
all off! Immediately! Just get rid of all it and you’ll
never worry again! Do you want to spend the rest
of your life in mammogram scanxiety?” “Ask plastic
surgeons for pictures, and pick the cutest new
boobs out there. You won’t regret it.” “The radiation
burns — that’s something no one ever tells you. Get
yourself some Lubriderm and lidocaine, mix into a
slurry, slap it on a panty liner, and tuck it in your
sports bra.”
I’m not sure why I thought I was immune. Or maybe
I didn’t — maybe I just never gave it much thought.

Even when I found the lump on my breast, I was
dismissive. I went to the doctor, and she asked if
anyone in my family had had breast cancer. “Oh, who
knows? They were all murdered,” I said blithely. Her
eyes bugged. “In the Holocaust,” I added. “Your …
mother? Grandmother? Sisters?” “Oh! No, no history
of breast cancer in my immediate family.”
Add to that, my mother and sister both tested
negative for the BRCA gene mutations, and that’s my
Ashkenazi side. The thing is, though, most women
who test positive for breast cancer have no family
history of it.

But also, I’d done everything right! If you look
through the preventative measures, I took all of
them. I had three kids by 35,
and I breastfed them. I have a
healthy, mostly plant-based diet;
I walk and cycle everywhere. I’m
not a drinker or smoker. I eat so
many blueberries!
Several of the articles that have
been published in recent days
are emphasizing the particular
danger for Black women, with
good reason: They have twice
the mortality rate of white
women. But as I did my research,
I realized that Jewish women
should also be on high alert.

We’ve long known that one in
40 Ashkenazi women has the
BRCA gene mutation, significantly
raising the risk of breast cancer
(50% of women with the gene
mutation will get breast cancer)
as well as ovarian cancer, which
is much harder to detect and far more deadly. So
many of my friends who reached out to me to tell
me of their breast cancer experiences are Jewish;
interestingly, not one has the BRCA mutation.

Are these high numbers indicative or anecdotal?
Are Jewish women generally more susceptible to
breast cancer? This seems to be an important area
of future research.

For me, that research will come too late — as did
the guidance. For now, I have to accept that this
cancer diagnosis is part of my life, that just as I will
pick up challah every Thursday, I will wake every
morning and take my hormone-blocking Tamoxifen.

I will lose sleep every night about which surgery
to have until I have the surgery, and then I will
lose sleep every night about whether it was fully
successful. And there’s plenty more in store for me
that isn’t pretty; so it goes.

But here’s a good thing that’s already come out of
this diagnosis: When the responses to my Facebook
post flooded in, they were not only along the lines of
“Refuah shleimah” and “I’ve just been through this
too,” but also, “Thank you for sharing! I’m going to
book my mammogram right now!” ■
Karen E. H. Skinazi is associate professor of literature
and culture and director of liberal arts at the
University of Bristol in the United Kingdom.

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