“Jordanna’s Story, Part One” – with Jordanna Nadritch, President of Sharsheret’s Board of Directors

Dr. Fox: Welcome to today’s episode of “Healthful Woman,” a podcast designed to explore topics in women’s health at all stages of life. I’m your host, Dr. Nathan Fox, an OBGYN and maternal fetal medicine specialist practicing in New York City. At “Healthful Woman,” I speak with leaders in the field to help you learn more about women’s health, pregnancy, and wellness.

Jordanna, welcome to the podcast. It’s so nice to see you in person. We had a Zoom meeting earlier this week. And now, we’re here face to face. You look great. How is everything going?

Jordanna: Thank you. I got dressed up for you today. I’m wearing my pink.

Dr. Fox: Yeah. You’re in pink. Yeah. We’ll take a selfie.

Jordanna: Excellent.

Dr. Fox: We’ll throw it on. Very, very nice. How are your kids? Everything’s good? We’re back in school.

Jordanna: Yeah. Everyone’s back where they have to belong. You know, my daughter’s at WashU with your two daughters. So, that’s terrific.

Dr. Fox: Indeed. It’s a good thing. I was saying, in my office, we’re recording now in, like, the beginning of September. This is like…it’s like Christmas. It’s, like, the happiest time of the year because everyone comes in like, oh, thank God, my kids are back at school.

Jordanna: Back in school. Totally.

Dr. Fox: I don’t think kids feel the same way, but the parents do.

Jordanna: Yeah. So, I think they do. They’re excited. It tapers off. We all know. But for now, they’re all excited, which is great.

Dr. Fox: Good. Excellent. Well, I’m really happy you’re here. I’m happy you agreed to do this. As our listeners know, we’ve been, the entire month of October, having podcasts about breast cancer and, obviously, breast cancer awareness. And we were talking about Sharsheret. And you are the president of that organization. You are a survivor yourself. You have a family history, you have a personal history. And I just thought, what a perfect way to sort of end this month is to have you tell your story and talk about Sharsheret. So, thank you for coming in to do this, coming in person and not doing it over the phone. I really appreciate it.

Jordanna: Well, thank you for inviting me to come. Thank you for having me. I’m totally flattered that you wanted to share my story and bring in what I’ve been through as well as my personal connection to breast cancer, Sharsheret, women’s health. So, I’m excited to be here. It’s my first podcast.

Dr. Fox: Really?

Jordanna: Absolutely.

Dr. Fox: Your maiden voyage.

Jordanna: I have never been so flattered to be asked to do something in my life. So, this is really exciting.

Dr. Fox: Right. This is great. Welcome to the world of podcasting. You have told your story before.

Jordanna: Absolutely. Yes.

Dr. Fox: You’ve spoken publicly. This is not your first rodeo…

Jordanna: No.

Dr. Fox: …talking about your story, but I guess, in this forum, it is.

Jordanna: Yeah. I’m a lawyer. I have spoken before many judges much more formally. I can speak… You know, that’s actually interesting because when I go into court, so many times in my professional career, and spoke about significant legal matters. But when it came time to first share my story, I froze.

Dr. Fox: Really?

Jordanna: Yeah. It was something that I kept so private for so long that, opening that box, unleashing it, you know, didn’t know where to begin. I didn’t know how to start. So, I have done it since then. You know, it’s been…I guess my personal story started 17 years ago, but I only started sharing the last few years, candidly. And it’s come out in bits and dribs and pieces here and there, and really never only…never really have been able to share the full story. So, I think I’ll have a chance to do it with you today. So, I’m excited for that.

Dr. Fox: That’s terrific. I’m trying to think how long we’ve known each other. Around the same…

Jordanna: Yes.

Dr. Fox: You know, give or take, the same amount of time.

Jordanna: I know exactly when I met you. You delivered my niece.

Dr. Fox: Yes, indeed.

Jordanna: Who was born 17 years ago.

Dr. Fox: Her mom was my first patient.

Jordanna: But my mom, which is where my story began, was just diagnosed with breast cancer at that time.

Dr. Fox: Yeah.

Jordanna: So, I actually…which you may not even realize, our stories…our connection, rather, started at the time that my story began as well.

Dr. Fox: Right. I mean, I do remember when your mother died, but not through you.

Jordanna: Right.

Dr. Fox: Right. Through your brother, obviously, who I’d just taken care of them. So, that was obviously a horrible moment. But we met, I mean, either at the time or very shortly afterwards, because we live in the same community. And we have…you know, we know a lot of people that…you know, the same people, obviously.

Jordanna: Exactly.

Dr. Fox: Wow. So, here we are. So, I guess for our listeners, before you go into your story, just who are you? Like, where are you now? Like, what’s it…like, who are they hearing? You know, who’s talking?

Jordanna: All right. So, 47 years old. Full disclosure giving my age to give some context to how old I was when I started this whole journey at age 30.

Dr. Fox: Right. Plus you’re younger than me. So, it’s nothing to be embarrassed about. It’s all good.

Jordanna: Still have some gray on me, though. I’m a mom of three. I have a 20-year-old daughter, who’s in college at WashU, a senior in high school, and a freshman in high school. I live in Inglewood, and I am a lawyer. I practiced at law firms many years, corporate, financial, restructuring, and bankruptcy. I now work for Thomson Reuters for the last 10 years. I create content for lawyers on bankruptcy and restructuring, specifically. So, I’m still a full-time, you know, employee, lawyer in that respect. But my passion and my heart is being a mom first, and also for Sharsheret. I am a volunteer. I’m the president of the national board of Sharsheret, where now you are a board member.

Dr. Fox: Yup. You are my leader.

Jordanna: Well, I’m grateful for…that you’ve joined in this amazing crew of individuals who are on the board.

Dr. Fox: Yeah. I went out there. I warned her. I said, “You don’t want me on your board. Don’t take me.”

Jordanna: And I begged you. I begged you to join, and you gave in to my persuasion. So, I’m excited.

Dr. Fox: Yeah. We could follow up in six months if you feel the same way.

Jordanna: No. I have no doubt I will. I used my lawyerly skills to persuade you on that one. That was effective.

Dr. Fox: I got cornered by you and Batya Paul, and there’s no getting out of that. There’s no chance.

Jordanna: The two of us together. No, we’re a dynamic duo in that respect. So, really, I give a lot of my time to that. When I’m not working, when I’m not being a mom, my heart’s there.

Dr. Fox: So, where were you 17 years ago before your story began, before all this happened?

Jordanna: So, 17 years ago, I was actually on maternity leave, and I had just had my second daughter. She was a few months old. I was taking advantage of a law firm’s, you know, 16-week maternity leave actually. And I was on week 14 and feeling great. I had my daughter, my older daughter, in camp. It was summer, it was July of 2008. And I was taking some time to myself before I went back to work in August. And I actually was on the way to the beach with my best friend, taking a day, which I never had done for myself, when I got a call from my mom, who was living in Florida at the time. And she said, “Can we talk?” I’m like, “Oh, I’m on the beach. What do you want to talk about?” I mean, we talked all the time. We talked [inaudible 00:06:28]. She sounded serious. And she called and said, “I’m going to tell you, I’ve been watching myself, but they found a lump, and they think it’s cancer.”

And, you know, everything went black for me at that time because I had just turned 30. I had, you know, what I thought was really, like, on my path. I had a great job at a big firm, had two beautiful daughters. You know, life just seemed to be going in the right direction. I didn’t know what breast cancer even was. And I think that, you know, it wasn’t something that came into my world yet. I just heard of someone who’s a friend, whose mother was sick, but I didn’t know what that meant. I had a million questions, and didn’t even know how to be there for my mom in that way because I was just completely shocked. It was news that I wasn’t able to digest.

Dr. Fox: At the time she told you, was it a diagnosis she just received, or was it something she’d sort of, you know, kept it to herself for a couple of weeks, couple of months till sort of she sorted it all out before she told you or, you know, her other kids?

Jordanna: Right. So, she kept it from me a little bit. She was my best friend, and she was also my protector, I would say, and didn’t want to worry me until she knew. But she had told me when we actually got into the details of it that she found a lump. She felt a lump actually. This was, you know, back in June, a month earlier, and went for a mammogram on her own. She was on her own and said, okay…she wasn’t even due. She was not delinquent with her testing.

Dr. Fox: Right. How old was she at the time?

Jordanna: She would just turn 56 years old.

Dr. Fox: Okay. Young.

Jordanna: Yeah. And for just context here, for a woman here, it was…she was premenopausal. She hadn’t even gone through menopause yet, which I joke with her. She was the youngest 56-year-old woman I knew because most women of that age are going through it, gone through, or have been on the other side of it.

Dr. Fox: Right.

Jordanna: She hadn’t even entered that. She was still in this peri stage where she was still, you know, very regular, hadn’t had the symptoms. So, that explains also, as I explained to you more about her story, why what she had was so aggressive also, given the fact that she was at this different stage in her life, hormonally, as well. But anyway, she found this lump. She felt it. And she had gone for biopsy subsequently once they confirmed it was a lump. And she had called me once they had called her and said this is cancer.

You know, at first I was paralyzed. You know, what do you do? But I remember calling my aunt, who was in Inglewood. You know, [inaudible 00:08:55] actually. And she always was my go-to for many things, but she is…I call her Dr. Concierge. She just knows everything. And she also knows so many…she just knew what to do. And with her help, I said to my mother, “You got to come up to New York. I don’t know doctors in Florida, but we know doctors in New York.” Not to say there aren’t any amazing ones in Florida, but we…our network. We’re New Yorkers at heart. My mom went to Florida. She lived there, but we are New Yorkers, and we live locally. And so, I had little kids. I also couldn’t fly down there as easily. So, I said, “You come up here. We’re going to get you into doctors. We’re going to get ahead of this.”

And we thought we’d get ahead of it. We really did. We thought, you know, standard breast cancer treatment, maybe surgery, then treatment, treatment and surgery. They said, okay, now, do treatment and surgery. We started with a typical…I think it’s called ECT. It’s a cocktail of chemo that was given then. But you have to remember, cancer in 2008 was very different than cancer today, treatments.

Dr. Fox: Yeah. I was going to ask you that. You know, I was going to ask you afterwards. If she were diagnosed today with the same thing, her treatment and prognosis probably would be much different.

Jordanna: Yeah. So, to give you some more details, she was triple negative. I don’t know if what…you know, how familiar you are or the listeners are. But triple negative is a very aggressive form of cancer. It means that their hormones are negative. So, the receptors don’t respond the same way to treatment.

Dr. Fox: Right. Most cancers related to the breast are responsive to hormones, meaning they’re sort of hormonally driven. When people are worried about if I take hormones, will it cause breast cancer, these types of things, that’s, like, the “classic” form of breast cancer. But this is one that has nothing to do with hormones, just comes out of nowhere. And so, they’re more aggressive.

Jordanna: It’s much more aggressive. And, you know, now in 2025, there are so many different ways to treat that. In 2008, there was almost nothing. In fact, they treated her as if she had the hormones, [inaudible 00:10:47] cancer, which she didn’t. And so, instead of the cells shrinking, the cancer cells shrinking, they grew, they rallied. It was, like, this, like, one day the tumor would…say, the size of a, you know, a small coin. The next day, it was a golf ball. So, this was started in July. By September, she almost had a tennis-ball-sized tumor growing out of her breast. It was something that the doctors couldn’t even comprehend. And they did…

She unfortunately ended up being septic because this cancer then got her sick, and ended up in the hospital with an emergency mastectomy on Yom Kippur, actually. I remember we all went down to Cornell [SP] Hospital on Yom Kippur, which is, like, you know, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, and a day where you just have…you take a break to just, like, talk to God. And we stood in that waiting room, waiting for doctors to tell us that she was going to get through the surgery. And we just…my brother and I, my dad, my little kids, I brought them to the hospital because [crosstalk 00:11:46] do with them on on Yom Kippur. And we just prayed. And we just prayed that she was gonna get out of that surgery okay. And she did. She got out of the surgery okay. And we had so much optimism. I was okay. We overcame that one hurdle. She had this mastectomy and, you know, we’re going to get back onto the treatment plan.

And so, that was the plan. And she tried. We actually even switched doctors and found someone who’s a little more aggressive, and try [00:12:11] try something new. She went down that course all while never complaining ever. She just kind of kept saying, “Give me more. Tell me what I have to do. Give me whatever it is to get better.” Never spoke about whether this was going to take her life or take her. And none of us thought that. We just said, okay, this is breast cancer. We’re just going to conquer [inaudible 00:12:29] and she’s going to keep pushing through. And she was a fighter. I mean, beyond a fighter. Never complained. I would talk to her every day. How are you feeling? A little tired, but good. Like, always optimistic. Going on her day.

Anyway, fast forward. This was, I think…the surgery, let’s say, it was end of September for context. By December, her breathing was labored. Something wasn’t right. We felt that things were progressing. The doctors kept saying, no, yeah, she has some food in her lungs. She’ll be okay. It’s hard to put into words the sense of foreboding I felt because everyone…the doctors were so, so positive. And I kept saying, “Are you sure? Nothing else we can do? Are we missing something?” But they were super positive.

And on a Friday…I will not forget it, it was winter. It was a weekend before Hanukkah was starting. I took her to her treatment at Cornell, and she wasn’t breathing well. And I said to the doctor…and I pulled the doctor aside. I said, “Are you sure she’s okay?” Yeah, some food in the lungs. She’s fine. I said, “Are we talking, like, months here, years?” Five years, 10 years. You got this. We have this. I said, okay, I’m just…like, there’s something deep inside of me, my connection to her knowing that she wasn’t herself.

This is a Friday. Sunday morning, she woke up with a fever, two days later, ends up in the hospital, completely in a coma, septic. It’s the first day of Hanukkah. And they said she wasn’t going to make it through the night, actually. But she did. She did regain consciousness here and there over the course of the following eight nights over Hanukkah. She was our Hanukkah miracle because she did stay alive those eight nights. And she passed away on the eight night of Hanukkah.

And so, her whole diagnosis from beginning to end was five months. And it was five and a half months maybe. It was jarring. It rocked my world, my brother’s world, my family’s world, because here it was. It was breast cancer. You’re not supposed to pass away from breast cancer, in my mind. I’m not saying you don’t, but it was like, you know, you hear these other aggressive cancers, but breast cancer was never on my radar in that way. And it was really hard to understand what happened. I do believe…like, to answer your first question, I do believe if she was alive today, she would have been able to be treated differently.

Dr. Fox: Yeah. When you said how your mom’s attitude was so, you know, positive and fighting, was she always like that? I mean, is that something…was she always that kind of person, or did it just sort of, like, show up when she got diagnosed?

Jordanna: Such a great question, actually. She always was known for her smile and her warmth. She was, like, the warmest person. You know, exuded, like, so much love and sunshine. Like, that’s really how people know her. She was a volunteer for UJA. I thought she actually worked full-time for UJA because she always worked for UJA. And I said, “Do you work full-time?” She said, “I’m a volunteer.” That’s the kind of person she was, always giving, very present in my life, my brother’s life. She was a stay-at-home mom even though she was a trained social worker, and had so many talents, artist, decorator, did everything. I wouldn’t say she was a fighter, though. I wouldn’t have described her as that. I wouldn’t have ever said that that’s my mom, a fighter. She morphed.

Dr. Fox: Because you wouldn’t know.

Jordanna: I wouldn’t know. She morphed in that time period to someone who was not just a fighter, but, like, just really…I guess I’m finding the right word. But someone who was, I guess, more positive, to your point, and just had a different outlook and never…we didn’t have those conversations that one might want to have with their parent passing away about what they wanted for their kids, for their future. Because till the day she died, till she lost consciousness, she kept saying, “Well, just give me a new chemo.” We’re in the hospital during that Hanukkah time period. She said, “Just find me something else.”

Dr. Fox: Right. She expected to be alive a long time.

Jordanna: Yeah. It sprouted at that time. So, that’s what was interesting. I never saw that side of her.

Dr. Fox: Now, obviously, when she died, it’s awful, right? Obviously. How much of that was just your grief over losing your mom, your best friend versus…or when did it sort of turn into the fear? Oh, my God, this could happen to me. Right? Because it’s…they’re happening at the same time, obviously. And at the beginning, I presume it’s mostly grief. And then it’s sort of at some point…you know, with time, grief gets a little better, but then you have this whole other set of terror on top of you. Like, oh, my God, I’m going to get this because my mother got it.

Jordanna: Right. So, here comes the plot twist. Ready for this one? So, my mom was tested during the end of her sickness for the BRCA gene, both the 1 and 2 genes.

Dr. Fox: That’s probably the only ones they had at the time. Right?

Jordanna: Exactly.

Dr. Fox: Now, it’s like a hundred. Right.

Jordanna: I think there are more than that, but yeah. And she was negative for both of them. So, when it came time to test me, which doctors encouraged me to do after she passed away, I remember even that…like, one of her doctors, became very close to them because they were really…they cared for her very much. And also it was testament to who she was as a person with the doctor. She really created a relationship with them because she was so appreciative for everything they were doing. So, they came to the Shiva, which was very unique for the doctors to come to Shiva, having only known her for a very short time. And I remember speaking to her on the side and they said, “Well, you’ll have to get tested.” I said, “But she’s negative.”

Dr. Fox: Right. What are you testing me for?

Jordanna: What are you testing me for? She’s negative. They said, if we just…you know, [inaudible 00:17:44] just get you tested. And I was really reluctant, and I couldn’t even process what that meant. But I think, going along with just, okay, sure, a blood test. I’ll do it. Why not? I went ahead and did it really short after she passed away. We’re talking about ’09 now, beginning of ’09. And I came back being a carrier of the BRCA1 gene. And I was like, this doesn’t make any sense.

Dr. Fox: Right.

Jordanna: Was her blood not accurate? Was something wrong? So, I called Cornell, where she was, and I said, “Can you pull up her records again? Are you sure you got the right blood?” And they said, “Yeah. No, she’s negative. We tested her [inaudible 00:18:21], you know, established lab and you’re good.” So, then I called back…aActually, I did my testing at Mount Sinai, actually. And I called back Sinai. I said, “Are you sure you got this right?” They’re like, “Yeah.”

So, I sat there and paused. Okay, I’m not thinking on this clearly. I obviously have the gene from my dad. And that to me was where the plot twist came in. Not that I have this genetic history from my mom, where she had this very aggressive triple negative cancer, but now I had a BRCA1 gene from my dad. My dad’s mom died very young of breast cancer. She may have been nearly 40, I believe. He was very young. My father hasn’t talked about it much. He was very close to his mom, but she did die very young of breast cancer. And my dad’s…she actually was a twin sister, his mom, who…and her twin sister lived much longer, but died of ovarian cancer, actually.

Dr. Fox: Identical twin or no?

Jordanna: Identical twin. Yup. And his cousin also had cancer. And so, [inaudible 00:19:15] his first cousin from his mom’s side. And I said, “Dad, you got to get tested.” And, of course, he did. And he was a BRCA1 carrier.

Dr. Fox: Right. It’s interesting because you said earlier in the story that breast cancer wasn’t on your mind. You didn’t really have a history, but you did have a family history. It’s just something that wasn’t…it doesn’t come into the forefront because you don’t think about it in the same way.

Jordanna: No, you don’t. And you know, my dad unfortunately was, I think, only 16 when his mom passed away. He was so young. I obviously didn’t know her. I’m named after her, actually.

Dr. Fox: Oh, really?

Jordanna: Yeah. I’m named after her. And I feel so grateful to have that connection to her, but I didn’t know her. So, it wasn’t on my mind. Just wasn’t there.

Dr. Fox: Right. Full disclosure to our listeners. I know Jordanna’s dad. I love Jordanna’s dad. We’re close. So, just FYI out there. I know [crosstalk 00:20:04] talking to.

Jordanna: Exactly.

Dr. Fox: Shout out to Curtis. Wow. Okay. So, you find out that you’re at risk for breast cancer because your mom…because your family history is a risk because either genetics we haven’t discovered yet or whatever it is, and you have a risk on your dad’s side. So, how soon after was this? This is months after your mom died, or years? When was this?

Jordanna: No, no, no. This was my mom…just to give you context here. She passed away December 28th, 2008. And this was January of ’09.

Dr. Fox: Oh. So, right away.

Jordanna: Right away I got tested. They were really on top of me. My family was also to get tested. And I thought, what’s the blood test? I mean, what am I doing with this? Why not? And so, we…I mean, obviously, my father got tested. It trickled out the information. But by spring of ’09, we confirmed that it was…you know, he was a carrier. So, I had gone to a lot of counseling in this process as to what does this mean now? And candidly, everyone told me that I was a really…I mean, I was a double risk because it wasn’t just the BRCA1 from my dad’s side, which they say often can come with triple negative cancer, too.

Dr. Fox: Right.

Jordanna: My mom [inaudible 00:21:08] triple negative cancer also was very strong. And I should mention that while they didn’t have more than just a three test in for…or one BRCA1, two BRCA2 [inaudible 00:21:17] they were testing for. There were other genetic markers that I did have on my bloodwork that have unknown significance then, which they don’t know. And I’ve been tested against since then. They keep watching because you know, as a medical professional, that can mean something down the line. So, it’s possible my mom had something that I also inherited, which we will never know.

Dr. Fox: Right. And I assume at the time they weren’t, like, storing blood and banking it to retest later. No, nothing like that.

Jordanna: No, we didn’t. We did store some of her. We actually did store some of her pathology, her tissue, breast tissue. And we tried to test more of that, but we didn’t get very far at the time. And it was too costly to keep that endeavor going.

Dr. Fox: And also, it wouldn’t be the same thing as seeing what she had because the tumor is going to have weird mutations.

Jordanna: Absolutely.

Dr. Fox: Okay. All right. So, what did you do now that you’re a young woman and you have all, like, this cloud looming over you about your future?

Jordanna: So, first of all, I was incredibly private. I don’t think I shared this BRCA news with really anyone except for my inner family, maybe a friend or two. And I was married. I had two kids. I wanted to have more children. I wanted to go on with my life. I wanted to move forward. I was grieving my mom still. Still in that year of mourning here. And I was still very broken from the shock of that. Even though I was 30, I felt like I was 15. Honestly, I felt like I lost a big part of my life, and I had to heal from that. So, thinking about what this BRCA mutation meant and the genetic history was something I wasn’t able to get my hands around or even my head around. I kind of just put this aside for a while, but everyone said, “You can’t put this aside. You can’t do that.” So I said, okay, what can I do that’s the bare minimum? Like, what can I do where I’m following my health? Because I’m a lawyer. I’m not a uneducated person, but I also didn’t want to deal with that part of my life right then and there.

And so, the recommendation was very, very significant monitoring. It was sometimes every three months even, because given that they really felt that I was at risk before 35 to get breast cancer. And they kept telling me that they…at the time it would be triple negative probably. And it wouldn’t be easily curable, treatable maybe, but not curable, a very big difference they kept saying.

So, I went through these…you know, I would have mammogram, an ultrasound, an MRI on the cycle. And it was a very…I think I first started every six months, but then they would find, oh, incidental finding on MRI, let’s go back. So, I was constantly being called back in for more testing. I felt like I was in a doctor’s office or in a machine every few months. I mean, at some point it was every three months. And so, it gets tedious and it gets exhausting.

I really wanted a third child though. And I fortunately didn’t have a problem conceiving. That’s why I said I know you so well. Because I know you [inaudible 00:24:02], you know. And I said, okay, let me just have…let me see if I can get pregnant again, my third child. And then I promised everyone my life, my father, my husband, my aunt, that I will address, you know, the issue and maybe undergo these surgeries. But I just wanted to have this third child. So, fast forward… Sure. Please.

Dr. Fox: I have two questions for you. The first is, were you not telling people just because, you know, like you said, you sort of want to put it in a box for a couple of years or whatever it is, or did you feel like there was, like, stigma or shame? Was there any of that involved? Was it really just, like, logistics, I’d rather not have to, like, be addressing this with the whole world right now?

Jordanna: I want to say that it’s a combination of both, but it’s more the latter. I would say it was more of the stigma. No one talks about BRCA. No one talks about genetics. The Sharsheret does come into play here a little bit because they were on the cutting edge of this actually. And they had…they weren’t webinars then because we didn’t have computers the same way, but they had recorded or invitation type of, you know, conversations with people who had undergone robotic surgeries or, you know, had done the genetic testing. So, I listened to one or two of those, but even that seemed like it was still such a private conversation. So, I also had two daughters. I understood what that meant. And I really wasn’t comfortable sharing that information because I was afraid that it was going to be this, like, cloud, the stigma over me.

Dr. Fox: And your children.

Jordanna: The children. Yeah.

Dr. Fox: The second question was, did you consider at the time being…like, doing IVF and testing for BRCA? Was that even on the table?

Jordanna: No one even suggested that. I don’t think what people do today, which is PGT, which is phenomenal, I don’t…I mean, you could speak to this more as an, you know…

Dr. Fox: It wasn’t done much at the time. People didn’t talk about it so much. Yeah.

Jordanna: I don’t think it was even… I don’t…

Dr. Fox: For BRCA.

Jordanna: I didn’t even know it existed, obviously. And I knew that I was able to conceive naturally. So, it wasn’t a conversation, but no one even proposed that as an option. And I will say, my doctors did know that I have BRCA. So, it wasn’t somebody proposed, oh, do you want to consider this option for your third? So, no.

Dr. Fox: Yeah. That’s definitely been an advancement in a positive direction for people.

Jordanna: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Dr. Fox: With these things, it takes time for everyone to figure it out. And that includes doctors, you know, and it’s…I don’t think it would have…I actually don’t remember what we thought 17 years ago. You know what I mean? And it certainly wouldn’t have been illogical. It’s just sometimes these things are just not in the custom, so to speak. And so, you don’t think about it as much, although it makes a lot of sense. But now, it’s much more prevalent, obviously. Okay. I interrupted you. You were talking about after…

Jordanna: No. [crosstalk 00:26:50]…

Dr. Fox: I mean, I interrupted you with a question. It’s my job, but you were in a train of thought that you’re doing all of this. You got pregnant, you had your baby.

Jordanna: I got pregnant. I actually had a son named after my mom. His name is Dylan. I give my husband full credit for that name. My mom’s name was Linda, and he scrambled the letters in Linda, and came up with Dylan.

Dr. Fox: Oh, wow. That’s genius.

Jordanna: Yeah. He is pretty genius. So, I had a son and…

Dr. Fox: It could have been Aldin.

Jordanna: Yeah, that was quick thinking, too, actually.

Dr. Fox: [crosstalk 00:27:18]. Okay. I think Dylan is the best. Yeah.

Jordanna: I think Dylan was the winner. And…

Dr. Fox: Better than Ildan. Okay. All right.

Jordanna: Yeah. Interesting. But, you know, I actually loved that I had Dylan [00:27:29] for Linda. So, that kind of worked, too. So, I had my son, and I have these three children, thankfully. And I’m still being monitored and screened constantly. And on my 34th birthday…so, my son at this point is one. I had gone for one of my checkups. At this point, I was being monitored at Sloan Kettering. Even though I really…Sloan Kettering is a phenomenal institution. I only have the best to say about them, but I was there because I knew that that was a great place for me, given that my genetic history was so complicated, but I also didn’t want to be there because I didn’t have cancer.

Dr. Fox: Right. You’re like, why am I here with all these people with cancer? Like, I feel awful. But, yeah.

Jordanna: I don’t have cancer. I don’t want to be here. So, I was really torn, but I was seeing this amazing surgeon who was following my health. I’m 34. And I said to her, okay…

Dr. Fox: Was there any overlap with your mom’s doctors?

Jordanna: So, I will get to that in a moment.

Dr. Fox: Oh, okay. Not yet.

Jordanna: Not yet.

Dr. Fox: Okay. Got it.

Jordanna: So, thank God I didn’t need treatments. I wasn’t seeing…her oncologists were the ones who were prescribing actually…they were the ones that prescribed my…that were prescribing my ultrasound, mammogram, MRI. So, they were following me in that way, yes, but not her surgeon at the time. So, I got into Sloan Kettering to this amazing doctor. [inaudible 00:28:39] is her name, actually. She’s very well known. And I sat down with her and, you know, talking to her, it’s actually my birthday. And I said, “Okay. So, what’s next?” She goes, “Do you want me to talk to you as your doctor or someone who really cares about you if you were my daughter?” I said, “I don’t know. Both maybe.” She said, “Well, the answer is the same.” I said, “What’s the answer?” She said, “You need to do a double mastectomy. Jordanna, you’re 34. You are playing with your life.”

She said, based on my genetic history, she said…and this is someone who has been following me very carefully. They said my chance of getting triple negative breast cancer before 35 was, like, at 90%, something astronomical. I’m 34 [inaudible 00:29:20] give or take a year or two, obviously. But I’m thinking, I’m still not ready for this, but okay.

So, that’s when I started my process of figuring out how to go about doing this, what doctors I wanted to use for double mastectomy, when I was going to do it. And mind you, I had three little kids. So, I was not ready for that. I was still incredibly private. I may at this point have told a handful of friends on one hand, I can tell you, that knew I had BRCA, but that was it. No one else knew.

So, I really didn’t want to use the doctor at Sloan even though I love this doctor. But to me, again, [inaudible 00:29:54] cancer hospital. And I didn’t want…I wanted [inaudible 00:29:57] together in a way that felt whole, that wasn’t about cancer. So, I actually sought out the two doctors my mom had used, or one she used for her mastectomy and one that she had hoped to use for reconstruction, had she gone to that point. And I use them as my team. They were, like, my power team. And one was at Cornell and the other one at time was at…is still at Sinai, Mark Sultan, who I think the world of. He also is in our Inglewood community. And he is the most kind, thoughtful, gentle plastic surgeon you will ever meet, and really understood the emotional part of what I was going through. And he worked with a doctor [inaudible 00:30:34] was my surgeon. And I scheduled myself for January.

So, this is about six months it took me to kind of line up all the pieces. And that six-month period, I will tell you, I was very worried because even then I was like, okay, well, she’s [inaudible 00:30:48] almost like a ticking time bomb a little bit, you know? So, in that six months, I think I must have had two mammograms, ultrasound, MRI. I mean, that’s a lot of testing for someone. And you can’t sustain that. And it was because of my high risk.

So, ultimately, I had an MRI before the surgery. And that’s when they said, “It’s good you’re going in next week. We’re seeing some cells.” I said, “What?” They said, “Well, we see this puddling of cells.” I don’t even know what that means. And I said, “Okay. I’m in. I’m head in. I’m in.” And that was the beginning of my surgery journey, I would say. So, in January 2012. So, it’ll be 13 years, I guess, or 14 years almost actually. It’s been more than 13 years. I went in and did…oh, I’m sorry. January 13 it actually was. So, I went into double mastectomy.

Dr. Fox: Did they find cancer?

Jordanna: So, they didn’t find cancer. They did find these pre-cancerous cells.

Dr. Fox: Pre-cancerous cells.

Jordanna: Yeah.

Dr. Fox: So, I’m going to ask you one question, which is a big one. And then I think we’re going to pause and pick up the second half of your story next week, sort of that process, and then with Sharsheret. But the question I want to ask you is, how often do you think about the fact that your mother’s diagnosis and death saved your life?

Jordanna: Every day.

Dr. Fox: It’s crazy.

Jordanna: Every day.

Dr. Fox: Yeah. Like, I mean, if she got hit by a bus a year earlier, you wouldn’t be here.

Jordanna: I’m going to get super emotional, but every single day. She saved my life. It’s hard to find positive in such a tragic story because it really was tragic what happened to her, given how she was diagnosed and passed away so quickly. But I believe that she saved my life and I’m…because of that, I’m going to save my children’s lives, and pass it forward that way. But she was a soul and angel, and I still think she’s watching over me to this day because as I share my other…the rest of my stories with you, each hiccup that I experienced, I believe, was because she was watching over me.

Dr. Fox: Amazing. Wow. All right. We’re going to pause so I can finish crying. And then we’re going to come back next week with the rest of your amazing story.

Jordanna: Thank you, Natey [SP].

Dr. Fox: Thank you for listening to the “Healthful Woman” podcast. To learn more about our podcast, please visit our website at www.healthfulwoman.com. That’s healthfulwoman.com. If you have any questions about this podcast or any other topic you would like us to address, please feel free to email us at hw@healthfulwoman.com. Have a great day.

The information discussed in “Healthful Woman” is intended for educational uses only. It does not replace medical care from your physician. “Healthful Woman” is meant to expand your knowledge of women’s health, and does not replace ongoing care from your regular physician or gynecologist. We encourage you to speak with your doctor about specific diagnoses and treatment options for an effective treatment plan.