Angelina Jolie and double mastectomy

Angelina Jolie and double mastectomy

It was shocking when I heard the news that Angelina Jolie did double mastectomy.

Why preventive double mastectomy for Angelina Jolie?

Only a fraction of breast cancers result from an inherited gene mutation. Those with a defect in BRCA1 have around 65 per cent risk of getting it, on average.

Angelina says..

"My doctors estimated that I had an 87 per cent risk of breast cancer. Once I knew that this was my reality, I decided to be proactive and to minimize the risk as much I could. I made a decision to have a preventive double mastectomy".

Mastectomy procedure:

Nipple delay

This surgery rules out disease in the breast ducts behind the nipple and draws extra blood flow to the area. This causes some pain and small bruises but it increases the chance of saving the nipple.

Removal of Breasts

The major surgery can be done two weeks later,  where the breast tissue is removed and temporary fillers are put in place. The operation can take eight long hours.  In Angelina Jolie's own words  "You wake up with drain tubes and expanders in your breasts. It does feel like a scene out of a science-fiction film".

Reconstruction of Breasts

Nine weeks later, the final surgery is completed with the reconstruction of the breasts with an implant. Altogether  it takes around three months of medical procedures for the mastectomies involved.

In her own words..

"On a personal note, I do not feel any less of a woman. I feel empowered that I made a strong choice that in no way diminishes my femininity.

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".

After effects

It seems a sort of ad for the breast implant companies and expecting a rise in such firms and products with low quality implants.

Everything would become mechanical. Our fear takes control of ourselves and we do act based on that even if we may not get cancer. But who knows..

On a personal note:

I personally feel that most of the girls think femininity is a burden and they want to discard most  of their feminine assets say for example, cutting their long hair and making it into a pony tail kinda style which they say it is very easy to maintain. Another example is wearing a boy lookalike dress on the assumption that it is comfortable.  Nowadays nobody wants Sari.

Finally, I am afraid, this double mastectomy story which Angelina Jolie made public may inspire them in all possible ways and it may feel them that they have still more options :)

Courtesy: The journal 'My medical choice' by Angelina Jolie

U-turn

Tell me, whats in Your mind?

What plan do you have for me?

Please make me focused..

Please help me work hard..

I do look within every now and then

And it seems I’m not in the right direction..

I must go back.. this path won’t help..

Please let me take a U-turn..

4x10dulkar

Let me tell you this..

       Though my heart skipped a few beats many a times while you bat, I loved watching you.. 

       I was tensed whenever I watched you bat and felt calm and better only after you getting out :) Til that time, like most of the millions of cricket loving people around the globe, I used to sit praying and watching every ball with my fingers crossed! And you shocked me badly with your announcement from ODI cricket. I became very sad (and angry?).

       I believe nothing except your batting would make me so overwhelmed with ecstatic joy. I don't think any meditation or even sex would make me so much divine and complete. I have seen a guy sitting beneath my row getting goose bumps on his forearm while watching you starting your innings with a couple of boundaries at Chepauk this year against Australia.

       Also, in the second innings, everybody clapped and roared when the 2nd wicket(Sehwag) got out. While going back to pavilion  Sehwag might have wondered why the crowd became insane.

       Then You came.. You bat.. You conquered.. I think it was the first in your cricket life, you hit two sixes off the first two deliveries you faced. I believe it was for me. You did it for me. I once again thank God for letting me live in this world where Sachin Tendulkar bats.

       You made my life complete.. You gave my soul its never-ending ever-lasting energy.. Without You, my soul would have lost its path. Here now, I don't want to wish you many more happy returns of the day, as I could sense the critics have woke up from their siesta, calculating 38, 39, 40,.. and murmering lara, dravid, ponting,.. Let them do their business and our business is to watch you bat till the end.. May God go on blessing you forever.. for you, for me and for this entire universe..

‘Good night, No dreams’

We have seen different types of coiled springs in our daily life. Some of them are very strong, some are flexible so that we can squeeze it in our palm without much effort..

Consider the mechanism of an old gun. When the trigger is pulled, the coiled spring inside the gun gets squeezed up and stores energy and this energy is used for pushing the bullet when the trigger is released. This is the science behind it.

Now take out a coiled spring in relaxed posture and squeeze it in your palm. How long can you hold it like that? It depends on the strength of the spring(say spring constant) and the strength of your hand. Even if the spring is very light to squeeze, you can not hold it all the time in squeezed state.

If you are awake and have enough strength, you can press it for long time. However what happens when you start sleeping, your fist slowly opens up, the grip gets loosened and the spring regains it original size. I would like to name this spring-regaining-original-size process as a Dream.

Heard that the tribal people, say the aboriginals in Australia do not know what a dream is.. They do not control anything. They are like rivers.. They keep flowing.. And I do not think an infact is able to dream like we do.. It does not have any experience/ego. The infact does not control anything. The child pisses when needed without waiting or thinking. It does not matter whether she is sitting on the lap of Obama, or Katrina Kaif or whoever it does not matter. She simply pisses.

The child gives her 100% in everything she does. When she smiles, it is difficult for us to keep our eyes engaged in something else. At the same time, it is tough for our ears when she cries. She gives her 100% in crying too. She does not know how to fake a cry. However she will be learned those tricks from us gradually J

We can control, suppress/repress our feelings when we are awake if wanted. But we can not do the same when we are asleep. While we are asleep, the feelings which were suppressed pop up in dreams just like the spring coils regain its original size. A sound sleep is infact a sleep without dreams..

Let us now onwards wish ‘Good night, No dreams’ instead of ‘Good Night, Sweet dreams’! Let all the sweetness come to us when we are awake J

The Master Blaster in Chepauk

Now Sachin Tendulkar coming into the middle. Both the openers are now back in the pavilion. The entire crowd stood up clapping their hands to welcome Sachin till he took the guard and was ready to face the first ball off Pattinson. What a standing ovation! India were at 12/2 then. Both wickets to Pattinson. Crowd then sat down and started screaming Sa...chin.. Sa...chin.. Sa...chin.. Sa...chin..

Sachin was off the mark on the very first ball with a fine class boundary. Gallery roared.. Pattinson then bowled a superfast delivery, but that too reached the boundary rope within no time. Crowd almost exploded and I felt all the sounds in this world gathered together here to produce such a big noise..

I just observed  a few viewers out there a few rows beneath mine. One guy was showing his elbow to the next person sitting near to him(may be his friend) and telling something which I could not hear obviously. I then looked at his elbow and I could clearly see goosebumps out there! I then checked myself. No, I didnt have such big goosebumps. However, my entire body was shivering. Every cell in body was trembling. I could feel the sensations. It was marvelous. I have never felt such thing in my life. No meditation could ever produce such a blissful experience in me. It was infact a different kind of meditation which made each and every cell awake and dance. My eyes were filled with tears and they were on the edge of falling down. I sensed something happened on my face too. I guessed it might be some color change happened for me.

Lets welcome Meditation

Meditation is like a voyage by rowing your boat, crossing the near-by river, then observing the river flowing..

Here comes the million dollar question.

      Why crossing the river? The same can be done from this shore itself. Why the other shore?

Now you need to know how meditation happens..

      Mediation is like rain.. In order to get drenched in the rain, you have to go out first. Then you can do nothing but waiting for the rain to happen. Once it starts raining, make sure you drop everything including your clothes.. Get naked and the rain throws drops on every inch of your body. All you have to do is prepare nothing.. be yourself.. be a child.. everything else then flowers within you..

The real science behind this is: When you do some difficult tasks which required a lot of attention, you would stop multi-tasking and concentrate heavily on the single stuff you do.. Instead of mundane tasks, when you start doing something new or something really tough for you.. you create an atmosphere for meditation to sprout in you.. When you give your 100%, your everything in doing something, you are unknowingly creating an environment for the meditation to flower in you.. It can be anything..a 100m sprint, walking on a tighten rope above some height with a pole to balance, a good sex, playing tennis, batting in cricket, baseball etc..

Ask Ussain Bolt how he feels just after a 100m sprint.. He can easily observe his heart beats, its throbbing sensation etc. You ask Sachin Tendulkar what he feels when facing bowlers like Shohaib Akhthar, Bret Lee etc. Ask the legend Roger Federer about the aces he faced from the young players..

You know why cricket is getting popularity all over the world? Is it because of the uncertainty it provides? For an observer, uncertainty sure adds some beauty. At the same time, for a player especially for a batsman, when he faces a 140-150 km/hr delivery, he forgets everything.. everything is erased from his mind.. past, future etc. And the most important fact is the thought process stops.. Suddenly he feels a void.. It is at its peak when the bat kisses the ball.. He may have some thoughts, plans when bowler running towards the crease.. But suddenly every thoughts vanish..  It makes him feel immense joy..

The same experience happens at the time of orgasm.. Time stops and a void or blank is felt.. You get the absolute bliss of thoughtlessness and timelessness. And then you feel egolessness. Though this blissful state of being is ephemeral  you would want to experience it often, and you have no other option but to indulge in sex again and again.

      Now let's come back to the river side. There you could see the river flowing. Along with it carries many things. You could observe the logs, tiny substances, small or big creatures (alive,lifeless) floating. When you keep observing, you may reach a state when there is no river, no You. You get immersed into it, rather dissolved into the river. That is the moment when the observer becomes the observed. Ideally both the observer and the observed become one, and uniting with the universe as a single entity.