Wednes Day Links

As part of our recent move to the Bay Area, I started scheduling appointments to meet doctors who could perform my prophylactic mastectomy and hysterectomy. I had the first of these set a few weeks after we arrived. But just three days after opening the door on our new home, I felt a lump while I was breastfeeding my nearly 3-month-old. I was subsequently diagnosed with an early-stage breast cancer.

One day after my last chemo and exactly one month before a bilateral mastectomy that's been 12 years in the making, why I am writing about this rather than sleeping off the drugs as they work their way through my system? I don't want my daughters to have to go through what I'm going through. (Heck, I'm taking some of the same drugs my mom took!) I don't want them to have to rush their dreams. And I certainly don't want their only solution to be removing body parts.

I strongly believe, as I did over a decade ago when I first conceived this film, that one of the barriers to finding better answers are the patents on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes held by Myriad Genetics.

Joanna Rudnick, Filmmaker

• In the Family - full POV 2008 documentary by Joanna Rudnick (video)
• BRCA1 and BRCA2: Cancer Risk and Genetic Testing - National (USA) Cancer Institute (article)
• Angelina Jolie's My Medical Choice (NY Times)
• New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation (website)
• Breast and Ovarian cancer (Wikipedia)
• Fear of breast cancer recurrence prompting women to choose prophylactic mastectomy (Harvard Medical School)
• Testing BRCA1 Positive: What Happens Next (Huffington Post)

Ken Robinson: How to escape education's death valley

Late night markets

Simon and Melissa texted a 30 minute warning to be dressed and ready to go out. While I protested slightly because Miss Congenielity was on television, their insistance got me out the door and down to the underground carpark at Westfield Plaza Warehouse and the Pakuranga Night Markets.

I had brought my camera along and snapped a few photos as I walked around but I felt self-conscious at photographing strangers. I passed one food stand, steam rising up from the dumplings in front of the two busy servers. I liked the way the scene looked and thought it would make a really interesting photo but my shyness kept me moving.

After saying how much I liked the scene as we walked on, Melissa gumptioned me up to go back and take their photo. After some customers moved away from the stall, I asked the women if I could take their photos. They seemed confused at my request and unsure what to say. I pressed on with my request when one of them went to the back of the shop to avoid the photograph, and the second stepped hard right and gestured that I could photograph the food.

After some explaining that it was them I wanted to photograph, and some laughter and ribbing from their colleague at the back of the stall, they came back, a little reluctant and quite shy, but nice enough to do so. I snapped the photo quickly. If only I'd stepped forward, or taken one more moment to frame my shot, I could've got a better one but I got what I got and I'm glad I did. These hard working woment with their gorgeous faces, behind the curtain steam rising from their dumplings, make me remember that best way to eleviate the nervousness of taking photos of people is to talk to them so we both feel better about the experience.

The markets were well worth getting off the couch for, and doing something interesting for the evening like I used to do in my previous life. Thanks Simon and Melissa for your company - stirling, as always.

Grandma's House

My new favourite TV show.

Sunday quickie

We had the girls this weekend - they like coming to sleepover and we run through all the flavours of looking after munchkins from joy to tears and back again. Tandia (6) impressed her uncle with her knowledge of Dr Who episodes; Chloe (4) can burp louder than any man I've ever met; Dylan (1) fell into a rabbit burrow which speaks both to the size of the burrow and to the size of the child.

I also tried (unsuccessfully, due to quick reflexes (who knew??)) to slice two of my fingertips off whilst chopping rosemary for the roast potatoes. My finger, sporting an oblique slice to the nail, is throbbingly sore but at least everything is still attached.

Tonight Simon and Melissa came over - not just for dinner to celebrate Amy's 26th birthday - but to give me a lesson in kitchen cheese making.  Super awesome! I now have a jar full of oddly shaped but creamy tasting mozerella balls just begging to be melted all over a pizza one day this week.

How did your weekend go? 

Star Wars Day

May the fourth be with you - and more Savage Chickens.