Name: This Women’s Health Advocate Shares the Story of Her Double Mastectomy
Uploaded: 2017-05-03
Duration: 4 min 18 s
Description: Former Obama aide Alejandra Campoverdi on her battle with cancer

[ MUSIC ] I had worked in the White House for President Obama during Obama care and this was something that now was starting to hit home. I never realized that all of the work we had done was really gonna affect my family and myself in this way. So when my mom was tested and we found out that she was [ UNKNOWN ] positive, I went, I got tested myself. Found out a few years ago that I was also BRCA positive. My aunt who was also diagnosed as being BRCA positive and it was until maybe four months ago, this was very personal. The first five months after I figured out that I was positive for the mutation, I didn't even tell my mom, I didn't tell anyone. This is what it is, the patient goes through when it is you find that out. I didn't speak to a genetic counselor. I didn't have any sort of infrastructure around me to support me. And I wanted to make the decision about what I would do with this information without being influenced by other folks and their fears, or their own Their own reactions, and so I took the time- And excuse me, many people in the audience do know, but for those who don't, explain briefly the ramifications of this information that you received. So as far as the numbers go, it increases your risk to 85 % risk of developing breast cancer over your lifetime. And so I built a relationship with a breast cancer surgeon. In Los Angeles, because I wanted to start thinking about what it is I would do preventively. But again it's a very personal thing, and it's something that, even a lot of my good friends didn't realize. But after Donald Trump was elected, I decided that I was gonna run for Congress. Because the seat in my district in Los Angeles, the 34th Congressional district opened up. And I was seeing Obamacare's repeal being. Pretty imminent, and I decide I'm going to run for the seat so I did. But I still didn't expect that I was gonna talk about it openly until I start realizing that we need to humanize this debate as much as possible and make sure that these stories are told. And people really understand that these are real lives that are gonna be affected pretty immediately and already there's a lot of fear going on in the community. SO AS A PART OF MY CAMPAIGN OVER THE PAST FEW MONTHS I NOT ONLY TALKED ABOUT IT, ABOUT MY BRAKA GENE MUTATION, BUT MY AD FOR MY CAMPAIGN WAS ABOUT THAT, YOU KNOW MY MOTHER JOINED ME AND THE FINAL LINE THAT I DELIVERED WAS DONALD TRUMP WANTS TO HAVE A CONVERSATION ABOUT WOMEN'S BODIES Let's start with mine, and so that was something that got some attention, and I was happy to do that because for me, being vulnerable about these issues, and that's what it is. When people are deciding to get tested, when people are deciding to come forward with this, it's very, very vulnerable and personal information, but I found it so empowering. Part of your message is that you made an affirmative Decision on how to deal with these findings, and you shared them publicly. Tell everyone what your decision is, what your decision was that you shared. My decision was to have a preventative double mastectomy. And in dealing with my doctor right now, what they suggest is doing it ten years before your mother developed breast cancer. And my mother developed breast cancer at 49. Some 37. So do the math. So at 39 is what I'm gonna be, I'm looking at doing this surgery and I talked about this publicly as well but again for me, it feels very empowering to be able to know this information and to alternate that decision on the side note my aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer around the time I was deciding that I was gonna run for congress. Now my aunt knew that she was [ UNKNOWN ] positive about A year and a half before she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she chose to not do something about it. Now, I'm not making a value judgment on anyone's choice. This is a very, very personal choice and there is no right or wrong answer. Each woman needs to make this decision for herself if she wants To do something preventively, but it was interesting for me to see the kind of siding doors of having this information and not doing something about it, having this information and doing something about it and having to go through it with her and see the surgery and the realities of it, because it is You know, it's a very dramatic surgery. So this whole past six months has been a big crash course for me on what this information means. But no matter where you land on the side of, if you should have it, or what you should do about it, having the information is so important. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

This Women’s Health Advocate Shares the Story of Her Double Mastectomy

Former Obama aide Alejandra Campoverdi on her battle with cancer