"I went from feeling completely fine one day, to waking up in a hospital bed after a 10-hour surgery the next," actress Olivia Munn wrote in a lengthy Instagram post that details her 2023 breast cancer diagnosis on Wednesday. Munn, 43, explains that in February of last year, she took a genetic test that looked for 90 cancer genes. She was negative for BRCA, the "most well-known cancer gene," as was her sister. We "high-fived over the phone," she writes. And yet two months later she discovered she had the aggressive and fast-moving Luminal B cancer in both breasts.
Credit for the discovery goes to Munn's OB-GYN and "guardian angel," Dr. Thaïs Aliabadi, who suggested they calculate her Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Score. She ended up with a lifetime risk of 37%, a figure high enough that the doctor asked her to get an MRI, which led to an ultrasound and biopsy. Had she not been asked to do so, "I wouldn't have found my cancer for another year—at my next scheduled mammogram," she writes. Instead, 30 days after her biopsy, she had a double mastectomy.
"I'm lucky," Munn writes. "We caught it with enough time that I had options." She writes that she had four surgeries over a 10-month period, and ends her post with thanks: naming partner John Mulaney, friends, family, and her team of doctors. "Thank you thank you thank you thank you..." She includes Aliabadi's advice for women: Have your Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Score calculated; if it's over 20%, begin getting mammograms and MRIs at age 30. (See her full post for more on her experience, plus photos she shared.)
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