HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Christina Applegate is now cancer-free after undergoing a double mastectomy.
“I’m clear. Absolutely 100-percent clear and clean,” the 36-year-old actress revealed on ABC’s Good Morning America Tuesday. “It did not spread. They got everything out, so I’m definitely not going to die from breast cancer.”
Applegate revealed earlier this month that she had been diagnosed with an early form of breast cancer. Even though the cancer was only detected in one of her breasts, she decided to have the procedure done three weeks ago because she tested positive for the breast cancer gene, BRCA1.
“I didn’t want to go back to the doctors every four months for testing and squishing and everything,” she explained of her decision. “I just wanted to kind of be rid of this whole thing for me. This was the choice that I made, and it was a tough one.”
The Samantha Who? star said she put the pedal to the floor once the early shock went away after first being diagnosed.
“Oh my god. I was so pissed off, so mad … I was just shaking,” she said of her initial reaction. “But then … immediately I had to go into take-care-of-business mode.”
While she has persevered, Applegate admitted the whole ordeal has been extremely challenging.
“Sometimes I cry” she confessed. “Sometimes I scream, and I get really angry and I get really into wallowing in self-pity sometimes, and I think it’s all part of healing.”
Thankfully, Applegate had some nearby inspiration in the form of her 67-year-old mother, who was diagnosed with breast cancer when the former Married … With Children star was just a little girl.
“I watched her have a mastectomy, and then I watched her go through two years of chemotherapy and eight surgeries and a hysterectomy,” said Applegate. “I’ve watched this woman survive both of those things, so for me there was always that sense that I was going to be okay, no matter what.”
Sometime within the next year, Applegate said she plans to undergo reconstructive surgery.
“I’m gonna have cute boobs till I’m 90,” she joked.
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