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How Jessica Queller Opted for Double Mastectomy Over Cancer

by Tanya Thomas on Oct 17 2008 10:26 AM

For Jessica Queller, it wasn’t material for her hit TV show she wanted when she opted for breast cancer- preventive double mastectomy; it was the harsh reality of watching her mother suffer from the disease that drove her to this radical decision. The supervising producer and one of the head writers of the CW series "Gossip Girl" recently revealed that she had undergone a prophylactic surgery to prevent cancer.

Queller, 38, is so fearful of developing the disease that she had her breasts removed in 2005, and is now planning on having her ovaries removed even though she does not have ovarian cancer.

She had tested positive for the breast cancer 1, or BRCA1 mutation, and after seeing her mother struggling with the illness, she decided to have the preventative mastectomy and reconstructive surgery.

Queller revealed her ordeal in her book titled, "Pretty Is What Changes: Impossible Choices, the Breast Cancer Gene, and How I Defied My Destiny".

She had had two options: surveillance and careful screening or prophylactic surgery.

"People ask me all the time if my life was split in half by this news," Fox News quoted her as having written.

"But, my life was split in half by my mother's illness and death. I've never witnessed such horror. I'm completely traumatized. I never imagined such suffering could be real. Every decision I made was based on what I witnessed her going through. I just knew instinctively I'd do anything to avoid getting cancer," she stated.

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She is now trying to become pregnant before she has to have her ovaries removed.

Source-ANI
TAN/SK


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