Beyond Laughing
You know how last week I shared with you that I was pictured/quoted in the October 2007 issue of Shape magazine?
Well, today I’ll share that I was quoted in the Fall/Winter 2007 issue of Beyond Breast Cancer magazine. The piece is called ‘dancing with fear’ and it addresses the fear of recurrence.
Before you get all ‘yeehawww’ on me, it’s not all great because they messed up, big time. The piece is loaded with inaccuracies. Here’s a scanned excerpt (yes, print is small, it’s not your aging eyes!):
First of all, I have three children, not two. The jokes about my boobs, I have made those jokes, but only after the dreaded surgeries of 2006 — in particular, the TRAM flap, not trans flap. Amazingly, a fact checker ran the piece by me in June after the writer submitted it to the magazine; I corrected her then, on each of these points, but that didn’t make a darn bit of difference — they ran it uncorrected!
Here was my email response to the text they ran with:
“I think we need to talk so you understand (maybe the editor should
call me?). There are some problems with this, for sure, and it would
hurt me if it were misprinted since this is a sensitive topic!
#1) I have three young children (not two).
#2) The second graf is out of context — the surgery, called a TRAM
flap, was after my 2006 recurrence; that’s what left me without
nipples. The grape experiment actually happened last summer; but the
blueberries, jelly beans, those were speculative.
How do you want to proceed?”
I suppose the point of laughing away your fear of recurrence still came across, but man, as a writer? It bugs the hell out of me the way they handled this one.
My concern is that this piece could confuse the heck out of anyone dealing with a recurrence of their own, or facing surgical decisions (some poor women, overwhelmed with information to begin with, might wonder … what’s a trans flap?). Then there’s the medical community … the doctors on their staff are probably cringing at these inaccuracies.
Unfortunately this additional quote of mine was almost lost to me … it is accurate and I think it is the best bit of insight for anyone facing a recurrence:
Here’s the question: Because the editors of this particular publication focus specifically on breast cancer topics, shouldn’t they know the proper terminology? The writer should have been more careful, the editor should have caught the error … at the very least, they should have read my response to the fact checkers email!!!!!
Meanwhile, what do you think? Am I being overly critical because I’m a writer or am I right to be irked by the way they handled this one?
October 2nd, 2007 at 7:01 am
As a fellow writer and bc survivor I dont think you have every right to be irked about this! Not even as a writer am I irked for you as well…it is as a bc survivor and how they inaccurately portrayed your information! As you said …this is a breast cancer publication, so you would think that they would know the “lingo” and get the spelling and info correct. I see where it is confusing that they mention your “trans” (OMG!) flap almost as a response to your first cancer and THEN mention the mastectomy. I understand how you are feeling, you want someone reading it to get the correct info on this very sensitive subject. Must be so very frustrating for you!
I still want to say Congrats for being in the mag, but I am sorry it was so messed up!
October 2nd, 2007 at 7:03 am
OOPS!! I just saw that I made my own mistake …how ironic, in my above post!
I meant to say…I DO think you have every right to be irked about this!
I swear I didnt do that on purpose!
October 2nd, 2007 at 7:25 am
A magazine that is meant to be ALL about breast cancer should (a) have staff that know the subject inside out and backwards and (b) be extremely cautious about what they print. They do a disservice to anyone who has been diagnosed with the disease when they make “errors” like this. A misquote is one thing, misinformation is completely unacceptable.
You have every right to be annoyed, not just as a writer, but as a survivor. The fact that no one bothered to get back to you on the corrections/revisions makes me question the integrity of this publication.
October 2nd, 2007 at 7:28 am
I’m thinking ladies that a letter writing campaign to the editor is a MUST. And something tells me that it won’t be just the 3 of us who have noticed this…others who will pick it up from the newsstands will be appalled. Karen, I hope you are writing a letter to the editor and make it clear that you want it to be published so that others know you understand the terminology and what you were talking about. This goes to your own credibility.
July 22nd, 2008 at 6:47 am
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