Kudos to Christina Applegate

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Christina Applegate, at 36, has dealt pro-actively with her breast cancer. Applegate's mother fought breast cancer, and Applegate tested positive for the BRCA1 breast cancer gene that made her a likely candidate for the disease. For that reason she has been tested every year since age 30. Cancer was detected a month ago in one of her breasts, but Applegate opted to have both her breasts removed in an operation known as a prophylactic double mastectomy.

Now cancer free, she credits the MRI screening with saving her life.

"My decision, after looking at all the treatment plans that were possibilities for me, the only one that seemed the most logical and the one that was going to work for me was to have a bilateral mastectomy," Applegate said. [...]

"I didn't want to go back to the doctors every four months for testing and squishing and everything. I just wanted to kind of get rid of this whole thing for me. This was the choice that I made and it was a tough one."

Though she will be undergoing breast reconstruction surgery over the next eight months, Applegate said the emotional toll has been heavy.

"Sometimes, you know, I cry. And sometimes I scream. And I get really angry. And I get really upset, you know, into wallowing in self-pity sometimes. And I think that it's all part of the healing," she said.

But Applegate is healthy and calm now, due to both her unflappible sense of humor -- "I'm going to have the best boobs in the nursing home"...

Working to turn a negative into a positive, Applegate is now raising much needed funding to give other high risk women the opportunity to have BRCA testing and life-saving MRI screening. The testing and MRI screening -- which is capable of seeing cells, can detect cancerous cells before a tumor forms -- is a costly procedure that is often not covered by insurance.

Applegate appeared on Good Morning American, speaking with Robin Roberts who is herself a cancer survivor. Click the image above to view the video on the GMA web site.

Kudos to Christina Applegate for her courage in coming forward so soon after her surgery to dispel the misinformation circulating around her very difficult, and personal decision. Best wishes on a speedy recovery.
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