Kerry Allen's Blog

Aug 05 2008

PSA

Tag: Public service announcement — Kerry Allen @ 2:31 pm

The only kind of celebrity news you’re likely to find me passing around.

Actress Christina Applegate is being treated for breast cancer. She’s 36.

Please, please, please have your doctor show you how to correctly perform a breast self-exam and discuss the best time in your menstrual cycle to do it. (Hormonal fluctuations can cause totally benign lumpiness and needless panic, so some times are better than others.) You are NOT too young to worry about it, and your yearly checkup is NOT often enough to catch a malignancy in its earliest stage, when treatment has the greatest chance of success.

Personal vigilance is your health’s absolute best defense. Do it for yourself. Do it for the people who love you. Do it for a 5-gallon bucket of green M&Ms, for all I care, but DO IT.

2 Responses to “PSA”

  1. C.J. Redwine is SO pretty.
    August 6th, 2008 at 11:43 pm

    Absolutely.

    Also, get Paps yearly. Without fail. And should irregular bleeding occur, insist on a D & C so they can examine the cells. My cancer was a form of cervical cancer that never shows up on a Pap. And before everyone thinks that’s too rare to happen to them, 1/4 of those diagnosed with cervical cancer have the same type as me. I was 30 when I heard the news.

    Get checked. Trust your instincts. Don’t expect anyone else to be vigilant about your health.

    This concludes my addendum to your PSA. :)

  2. Kerry Allen is SO pretty.
    August 7th, 2008 at 8:14 am

    I think women have a tendency to forget—because we’re so busy being everything to everyone and basically holding the universe together—that we’re vulnerable to little things. We worry about terrorists and seatbelts and registered sex offenders in the neighborhood but don’t cast that same watchful eye upon ourselves until little things become big and deadly.

    So many people rely on each of us, we can’t afford to NOT take care of ourselves.

    And if you have one of those doctors who minimizes your concerns and tells you you’re overreacting, fire the sexist jackass and a find a doctor who puts patient care before the god complex. (Female docs are just as often guilty of this as male docs, but it qualifies as sexist because male patients do not get treated that way.) Respecting you enough to listen and take you seriously is the least they can do for what they get paid.

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