Carol McGinnis

Carol ZoAnne McGinnis was born in Baltimore Maryland to John Leslie and Zoe Graefe on May 5, 1961. She was the middle of five siblings and was 14 years old when she lost her mother to Breast Cancer May 9, 1975 at the age of 41. Carol dropped out of high school a year later at the age of 15, got married, and gave birth to her first child at 16. Over the next few years, Carol added five more children to her family and was successful in getting her GED. As she worked through her undergraduate and masters degrees (completed in 2002 and 2006), Carol began to write short stories, novels, and screenplays as a way to engage her creative interest in human behavior. In 2010, Carol completed her PhD in Pastoral Counseling and in 2013 she completed her second masters, this time in Cyber Security. Because her mother had died from Breast Cancer at such a young age (diagnosed at 38 and dead at 41), Carol never used birth control due to her mother's self-identified assertion that a short time on the pill had been partly responsible for her condition. In July of 2012, she underwent diagnostic testing that determined that she did not have a genetic predisposition (BRAC1 & 2 and BART) to breast cancer and was convinced that it would be safe to go on the estrogen patch to control symptoms of menopause. A few months later, she found a lump that was confirmed as beast cancer in January 2013 when The Good Breast documentary invitation was accepted. Because the tumor was so large, Dr. Schnaper decided that a regimen of chemotherapy first might shrink the size and result in more surgical options. Chemotherapy began the first week of March 2013 and ended in late June of that same year. Bilateral (double) mastectomy seemed the best option at that point because the size of the tumor had not been reduced and that was completed in July 2013. The post surgery news was not very good as the size of the tumor and 8 out of 12 nodes had tested positive for ER+ breast cancer - Stage III. After a few weeks of attempted skin expansion in August, radiation treatment over the course of 100 days - September to November 2013 was completed to reduce the probability of the cancer returning in the same area(s). Post treatment surgeries spanned from January 2014 - April of 2015 due to repeated issues of infection. To date, Carol is still working at her full time job as Assistant Professor at Messiah College in Mechanicsburg, PA and continues to write as a way to stay in touch with human behavior and beauty that comes form character development. Her work and hobbies continue to overlap as she still enjoys playing XBOX video gaming that had introduced her to her husband who has been a constant source of support (also stars in The Good Breast). Her areas of expertise in counseling are anger as a positive emotion and video gaming as a way to understand and interact with clients who may have difficulty angering offline. Her health continues to stay cancer-free with the help of anti-estrogen medication that is taken every day. Carol is happy to have hair again and has been relieved to be celebrating a third Christmas post-diagnosis that her mother never had.