Her Breast Lost in Vain

Jury awards $2.2 million for a famous mastectomy

Joanne Motichka had been expecting bad news. Her mother died of breast cancer, and she knew that she herself had a high risk of getting the disease. So she had regular mammograms, saw her gynecologist frequently and began seeing a breast-cancer specialist too. "I was cancer phobic," says the 45-year-old artist and photographer who goes by the professional name Matuschka. It was no surprise, therefore, when the lump she found in her right breast in 1991 turned out to be cancerous. On the advice of her surgeon, Motichka had a modified radical mastectomy: the breast was removed less than two weeks...

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