LSC Event Descriptions

November 16, 2004
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A FREE Screening and Discussion Panel:
One in Eight: Janice's Journey
November 16, 2004 at 6:00pm in 4-370.
A highly personal and irreverent look at one woman's fight against breast cancer, One in Eight: Janice's Journey follows 33-year-old community organizer Janice Fine through her diagnosis, treatment, and search for answers.

When Janice finds out she has breast cancer, she remembers how she felt at age seventeen as she witnessed her mother's painful battle and subsequent death from uterine cancer. Realizing that her worst nightmare has arrived, she rallies her support systems. We watch Janice receive chemotherapy, radiation and acupuncture, lose her hair and face the possibility of dying. Recalling her mother's premature death, Janice anguishes about whether to have children, fearing that she may not be around to see them into adulthood.

The impact of having cancer leads Janice to question how she might have gotten it. She travels home to Long Island, New York, where she discovers a breast cancer epidemic. Janice also confronts her past by visiting her old high school and the house that she had not set foot in since her mother's death.

Looking back, Janice observes that having cancer was like being swept out to sea: "Eventually the waves wash you back up to the shore, but you're a changed person. You re-inhabit your life back on land, but your memories of the sea are very strong. And the ways that the experiences of being at sea have changed you never go away." [oneineight.net] 57 minutes.

One in Eight: Janice's Journey will be followed by a discussion panel featuring Janice Fine (MIT PhD '03) and director Cynthia McKeown.

Co-sponsored by the Graduate Student Council, the Society of Women Engineers, and MIT Medical

November 16, 2004 <-- Previous | Fall 2004 schedule | Next -->