Angelina Jolie's mastectomy news shocks

It wasn't just that a supernova movie star had her breasts surgically removed to improve her chances of not getting breast cancer. It was how Angelina Jolie — a woman who is rarely without a paparazzi scrum in pursuit — was able to do it in secret, and then announce it on her own terms.
This never happens. Until Tuesday.
The next shock was how the news went over with people who love her, people who loathe her, or people who up until yesterday didn't give a fig about her.
In an exclusive interview with USA TODAY just hours after his fiancee went public, mega movie star Brad Pitt said he's "quite emotional about it, of course." He went on to say why her coming forward was important. "It doesn't have to be a scary thing. In fact, it can be an empowering thing, and something that makes you stronger and us stronger."

That strength was lauded in the world of social media, a place where comments can sometimes be soul-destroying. A surge of sympathy, respect and "well-dones" poured onto Twitter, praising Jolie, 37, for her guts, grace and candor in announcing her elective surgery and why she had it, in an op-ed piece in the Tuesday New York Times.
She invoked her mother who died of ovarian cancer, the woman who would never live to meet some of Jolie's children. "We often speak of 'Mommy's mommy,' " she wrote, "and I find myself trying to explain the illness that took her away from us."
Tweeted breast cancer survivor Sheryl Crow: "Ladies, please check out Angelina Jolie's story today, especially if you have breast cancer in your family history. I commend Angelina Jolie for her courage and thoughtfulness in sharing her story today regarding her mastectomy. So brave!"
The question now is how much the announcement that reverberated across the globe will impact the treatment of breast cancer in a country where 232,000 women are diagnosed with it each year, and 40,000 women will die from it.
What's clear already is that people who had no clue what a double mastectomy is and never heard of the breast cancer gene mutation BRCA1 — apparently multitudes — suddenly know all about them and why this is a big deal.
"Am I the only one who had to Google 'mastectomy'? Angelina got us learning new things," tweeted someone whose name was written in Arabic script.

I just love this woman. She's such an inspiration. God bless her home.

Scary story but brave step taken. god bless her

Anjelina Jolie word ..I choose not to keep my story private because there are many women who do not know that they might be living under the shadow of cancer. It is my hope that they, too, will be able to get gene tested, and that if they have a high risk they, too, will know that they have strong options. 

Life comes with many challenges. The ones that should not scare us are the ones we can take on and take control of.

Happy Family

Habari Kutoka USA today.com