Photo: Rodin Eckenroth / Getty Images Entertainment / Getty Images
LOS ANGELES (CNS) - Actress Olivia Munn revealed Wednesday she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a double mastectomy, saying she wanted to tell her story to encourage women to have their cancer risk assessed so they can identify potential problems early.
"I'm lucky. We caught it with enough time that I had options," Munn, 43, wrote in a post on Instagram. "I want the same for any woman who might have to face this one day. Ask your doctor to calculate your Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Score."
Munn -- who appeared in HBO's "The Newsroom" and in films including "Date Night," "Iron Man 2," "Office Christmas Party" and "X-Men: Apocalypse" -- said she and her sister last year decided to be proactive about their health and took a genetic test that detects cancer genes.
"I tested negative for all, including BRCA (the most well-known breast cancer gene)," Munn wrote in her post. "My sister Sara had just tested negative as well. We called each other and high-fived over the phone. That same winter I also had a normal mammogram."
But she added: "Two months later I was diagnosed with breast cancer."
"In the past 10 months I have had four surgeries, so many days spent in bed 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 I felt would interfere with my ability to stay clearheaded.
"I've tended to let people see me when I have energy, when I can get dressed and get out of the house, when I can take my baby boy to the park. I've kept the 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 said the cancer may have gone undetected for another year if her obstetrician had not calculated her Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Score, which came back elevated.
"Because of that score I was sent to get an MRI, which led to an ultrasound, which then led to a biopsy," she wrote. "The biopsy showed I had Luminal B cancer in both breasts. Luminal B is an aggressive, fast moving cancer. Thirty days after that biopsy I had 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."
Her message thanked the doctors at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and at Providence St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica.
She also thanked her boyfriend, comedian John Mulaney, with whom she shares a 2-year-old son, for his support.
"I'm so thankful to John for the nights he spent researching what every operation and medication meant and what side effects and recovery I could expect," she wrote. "For being there before I went into 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."