Columnist Judy Mann returned to The Washington Post to work with a column on January 9, 1997 entitled Discovering Cancer, Embracing Life. In it she discusses breast cancer, her diagnosis and treatment. She wrote, “I have always thought that a mastectomy followed by chemotherapy would be a woman’s worst nightmare…But perhaps the most important thing I can share with you now is that it is, in the immortal words of my friend and fellow cancer veteran, Susan Lowell Butler doable. You can get through it.” She also warns women to get yearly mammograms, “Let me and my sister be a warning: A disease-free family history means nothing. I am now convinced that environmental toxins, combined with a Western diet, overexposure to estrogen, and the tremendously stressful lives most women lead, are contributing to an epidemic attacking younger and younger women. Every woman is at risk, and early detection provides the best chance for recovery.”
Mann is a longtime feminist who has written extensively for the Post and in 1994 published a book entitled, The Difference: Growing Up Female in America.
