To say the last few years of Olivia Munn’s life have been a rollercoaster doesn’t fully capture what she’s been through. After welcoming her son, Malcolm, the Your Friends & Neighbors actor was diagnosed with breast cancer in April 2023. She underwent a series of intense procedures and treatments—an “aggressive” approach that, she tells SELF, ultimately put her into surgical menopause.
In SELF’s April cover profile, Munn goes into detail about her treatment for bilateral, multifocal, multiquadrant stage 1 Luminal B breast cancer, which ultimately led to her using a gestational surrogate to carry her second child, six-month-old Méi. “When I was diagnosed, they were telling me, ‘This is fast-moving. This is aggressive. We don’t have time. We’ve got to go now,’” Munn tells SELF. “I was thinking immediately, Okay, I’ve got to fight and I’ve got to get through this. Just tell me what to do.”
And that’s exactly what she did. By that same time next year, Munn had a nipple delay procedure, lymph node dissection, a double mastectomy, and reconstructive surgery. Her breast cancer is hormone receptor positive, meaning the cancer cells can grow in response to hormones like estrogen and progesterone. Lowering these hormones became a critical part of keeping the cancer from developing further.
For Munn, this meant adding hormone suppression therapy to her treatment plan (which involves using medications to stop or slow estrogen production). She also underwent an oophorectomy to remove her ovaries—the organ that produces estrogen—along with a partial hysterectomy to take out her uterus and fallopian tubes. These two procedures put Munn into surgical menopause: “Hot flashes, cold chills. My lashes were thinning,” she says.
If you’re wondering what surgical menopause really involves, here’s a more detailed explanation of what many, like Munn, may experience after procedures like an oophorectomy.
What is surgical menopause, exactly?
Usually, menopause (the phase marking the end of a person’s period) naturally happens in your 40s and 50s. However, certain cancer treatments (like chemotherapy drugs and hormone suppression therapy medications) can quickly lower your estrogen and progesterone levels and cause what’s called medically induced menopause.
This technically isn’t the same thing as surgical menopause—what Munn is talking about. The latter occurs when one or both ovaries (and therefore, most of your estrogen and progesterone) are surgically removed, triggering the early onset of symptoms like hot flashes, mood swings, and night sweats, per the National Cancer Institute. And while most people in menopause can take estrogen to manage these symptoms, Munn—like other patients with hormone receptor positive cancer—can’t. “My cancer feeds on hormones, so they had to take away the hormones.”
One of the more notable differences between medically induced and surgical menopause, however, is that the former can sometimes be reversed. Depending on your age and the type and dose of your medication, your hormones could eventually bounce back if you discontinue the estrogen-zapping drugs. Surgical menopause, on the other hand, is permanent—so it can be a pretty major (and sudden) life adjustment.
Reflecting on her recovery today, Munn tells SELF that undergoing such rigorous treatment wasn’t easy. But it’s also one that was necessary—and ultimately life-saving. “It’s like if you’re drowning, you’re not thinking about anything from the past,” she says in the cover profile. “First, head above water. Second, get back to shore. Third, find my loved ones. So when I got to a place in all my treatment where I felt like I could say, ‘Okay, I passed a lot of big hurdles,’ [I realized] I was actually happier because I got through it.”
Read the full cover story with Olivia Munn here.
Related:
- Yes, Breast Cancer Can Hurt—Here’s Why Doctors Want to Put This Myth to Rest
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- Perimenopause Symptoms That Are Too Easy to Ignore
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