Hello. I’m Jackie.
From Long Island, NY. If you ask my mom, she’ll tell you I got my thrifting from her. She’s four-ten, former P.E. teacher, and the funniest human alive. My dad? He talks like Tony Soprano if the mobster coached high school basketball with a sore throat.
I’ve led a charmed life, mostly. I chose acting—a career where success is basically impossible. I was broke for years. Just enough commercial work to keep gas in my fifteen-year-old RAV-4 and bills paid. I kept grinding because I knew I couldn’t do anything else. Madness, perhaps.
Then my forties hit.
Suddenly? Everything worked.
I landed a lead in Nobody Wants This. It blew up on Netflix. I found Joe. We adopted dogs named Glen and Steven Spielberg. It felt good. Really good. I had health. They had theirs.
Then my dad found nodules.
Abrupt.
My mom insists on the word “nodules.” It’s a Jewish mother tactic. Don’t say cancer. Say nodule. Like he found a weird mushroom in the garden. Nothing scary.
They weren’t mushrooms. Metastatic carcinoma.
Doctors scanned him every which way. No source. They ran a hereditary cancer panel. BRCA1 positive. Likely male breast cancer. The doctor told him, “Get your kids tested.”
Summer arrived. Routine mammogram for me. I tell the radiologist, casually, “By the way, my dad tested BRCA1 positive.”
The room froze. Woof. Her face changed instantly. “Don’t leave without testing.” She pulled a surgeon into the room. A guy I’d never met.
“Fifty percent chance you have it,” he said. “Big risks for breast and ovarian cancer.”
Okay. Breathe, Jackie.
In my gut? In Yiddish we call it kishkes. My gut knew I was negative. “I’m clear,” I told my mom. “I just know it.”
Two weeks later. Results arrived.
My gut was out of the office. Dammit. BRCA1 positive.
No time to process. No time to scream. The clinic called immediately.
When do you want to schedule surgery?
I was at a food bank. Volunteering. I went outside. Sat on a cement divider. Just gag-weeping into my phone.
“What surgery? I know nothing about this!”
Felt like someone handed me one nail in a field. Build the house, they said. How? When?
Community saved me. Friend Kristen Bell’s oncologist buddy sent a list: Oncologist. Gyn oncologist. Breast surgeon. Plastic surgeon. Genetic counselor.
I met them all. LA tour.
Genetic counselor laid it out: 85% risk of breast cancer. 65% ovarian.
Numbers that high? You don’t ignore them. Dense breasts meant more MRIs. Abnormal spot. Biopsy needed. Got that call driving to present at the Emmys. Got out of the limo screaming. Makeup fixed. Stage walked. Car door closed. Crying again. July through December was full glamour and full terror. Same hour, sometimes.
Advanced surveillance? No.
Didn’t want to check my shoulders every day for the rest of my life.
I decided. Ta-ta to my titas.
December 1st. Double mastectomy scheduled.
We threw a Boob Voyage party first. You have to say goodbye. Friends over. Candles shaped like boobs. Pillowcases. Cupcake toppers. The dark web of breast removal merch is real. “Custom ordered?” someone asked about our banner. “Nah,” I said. “$9.99 online.” Enough women face this that Amazon has a sign. Sad. True.
Sleeping. Waking up different.
Chose removal and reconstruction at once. Some say wait. He first. I said no. My team did thousands. I’d be fine. Happy with that call.
Surgeon sent tissue to path. Found scary stuff. Pre-cancer.
Bypassed by luck. Pure luck. Doctor screamed on the phone, “We did it! We saved her!”
Chills. Even saying it here.
Shifted everything. Small stuff still bothers me—I’m still me—but it matters less. Big stuff? More. I used to skip everything for work. “Unless work calls.”
Not anymore.
Me and Joe are leaving this summer. No work excuses. Just time. With him. With parents. Talking daily isn’t enough anymore. Want to be there.
In person.
