Christina Applegate has cancer

Sunday August 24, 2008

Current mood: Sad to see another join the Sisterhood of Breast Cancer


Last week we all heard the devasting news that Christina Applegate had breast cancer. Not much information was released at that time. She did an interview with Robin Roberts, who is also a breast cancer survivor on ABC. I watched the clip from the interview and have read several articles about Christina's story.

I know it sounds weird, and I don't even know Christina, but I feel a bond with her. I can relate to her story and know how it feels to have to make that horrific decision....do I take a healthy breast to prevent the cancer from coming back.

I had a bi-lateral mastectomy back in November of 2007. Making that decision was a difficult one. I also was tested for the BRAC gene. See I have no family history. My Mom was adopted, so I didn't know at the time if Breast Cancer ran in our family. The results for the test took about 3-4 weeks. They were long, sleepless weeks! The good news is I tested negative for the gene. Thank God!

In the time that I was waiting for those results, I had made my decision. I was taking the healthy breast too. My cancer was very aggressive! My tumor was 6 cm. That's huge! They estimated that the tumor was probably growing in me for about 2 years. The way the tumor was growing there was no way for me to feel it until it got to this size. It was growing up and in me, away from the surface where you would be able to detect it with a self breast exam. My cancer was also ER/PR positive and HER2 positive. I remember Dr. L saying she was stumped with my results. She had never seen someone with all three positive. HER2 positive makes up only 25% of breast cancer cases. Lucky me. With the results in all being positive, it made my decision a no brainer. I knew I didn't want to be back in another 20+ years fighting breast cancer again. I wanted to be done with it!

It's weird cause when I told my friends and family about my decision, they were all relieved. They were glad I was taking an aggressive approach and said that is what they wanted me to do but didn't know how to tell me.

Sometimes people ask me, if I have any regrets. The answer is NO. Taking the healthy breast was in my mind the right thing to do.

I wish Christina all the best in her cancercrapness journey.