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Olivia Munn took to social media on Wednesday to reveal she was diagnosed with breast cancer and has undergone a double mastectomy procedure.
Munn explained in a post to Instagram that this all began in February of 2023 when she took a genetic test “that checks you for 90 different cancer genes.”
She said she “tested negative for all, including BRCA (the most well-known breast cancer gene).”
Her sister, Sara, also tested negative, and that same winter, Munn had a normal mammogram.
However, two months later, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
“In the past ten months I have had four surgeries, so many days spent in bed that I can’t even count and have learned more about cancer, cancer treatment and hormones than I ever could have imagined,” she wrote. “Surprisingly, I’ve only cried twice. I guess I haven’t felt like there was time to cry. My focus narrowed and I tabled any emotions that would interfere with my ability to stay clear-headed.”
The “Iron Man 2” actress said she’s kept her diagnosis and “the worry and the recovery and the pain medicine and the paper gowns private.”
“I needed to catch my breath and get through some of the hardest parts before sharing,” she explained about why she’s been quiet about this.
Munn said she wouldn’t have found her cancer for another year, at her next scheduled mammogram, if her OBGYN Dr. Thaïs Aliabadi hadn’t calculated her Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Score.
“The fact that she did save my life,” she declared.
Dr. Aliabadi looked at Munn’s age, family breast cancer history and that she had a child after the age of 30.
“She discovered my lifetime risk was at 37%. Because of that score, I was sent to get an MRI, which led to an ultrasound, which then led to a biopsy. The biopsy showed I had Luminal B cancer in both breasts. Luminal B is an aggressive, fast-moving cancer.”
Thirty days after Munn had that biopsy, she underwent a double mastectomy.
“I went from feeling completely fine one day to waking up in a hospital bed after a 10-hour surgery the next,” she explained.
Munn said she’s “lucky” to have caught the diagnosis with “enough time” because she had options. Now she wants to make sure other women have the same.
“Ask your doctor to calculate your Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Score,” she said. “Dr. Aliabadi says that if the number is greater than 20%, you need annual mammograms and breast MRIs starting at age 30.”
She then thanked her friends and family for “loving” her through this, especially her partner, comedian John Mulaney. The couple share a 2-year-old son.
“I’m so thankful to John for nights he spent researching what every operation and medication meant and what side effects and recovery I could expect,” she said. “For being there before I went to each surgery and being there when I woke up, always placing framed photos of our little boy Malcolm so it would be the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes.”
“Thank you to the friends who’ve had breast cancer and the friends who connected me to friends who’ve had breast cancer for guiding me through some of my most uncertain and overwhelming moments,” she gushed.
“Breast cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed among U.S. women and the second leading cause of death from cancer among women after lung cancer,” according to the American Cancer Society.
It’s also the most common cancer in the world, according to Breastcancer.org.
Munn said she’s “extremely grateful” to the “nurses, patient coordinators and staff at Cedars-Sinai in LA and Saint John’s in Santa Monica.” She also thanked her surgical oncologist Dr. Armando Giuliano, her constructive surgeon Dr. Jay Orringer, her oncologist Dr. Monica Mita and her “guardian angel” Dr. Thaïs Aliabadi.
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