NEW YORK (Aug. 19) - Christina Applegate is taking the long view ofher battle with breast cancer - the really long view.
Speaking on ABC News' "Good Morning America" in her firstinterview since announcing her diagnosis earlier this month, the"Samantha Who?" star said she had a double mastectomy three weeksago. She'll undergo reconstructive surgery over the next eightmonths.
Skip over this contentCelebrity Health Scares
Will Ragozzino, Getty Images'Golden Girls' star Rue McClanahan announced on Nov. 5 that she's in the hospital "having some maintenance on the old ticker." There are reports the 75-year-old actress had bypass surgery.
1 of 32PHOTOS
"I'm going to have cute boobs 'til I'm 90, so there's that,"she joked in the interview, which aired Tuesday. "I'll have thebest boobs in the nursing home. I'll be the envy of all the ladiesaround the bridge table."
The 36-year-old actress elected to remove both breasts eventhough the disease was contained in one breast. She said she is nowcancer-free.
Applegate called the operation a logical decision. Her motherbattled breast cancer, and she tested positive for the BRCA1 genemutation linked to breast and ovarian cancer.
"I just wanted to kind of be rid of it," she said. "So thiswas the choice I made and it was a tough one."
The experience has been an emotional roller coaster, she said.
"Sometimes, you know, I cry and sometimes I scream and I getreally angry and I get really like, you know, into wallowing inself-pity sometimes," she said. "And I think that's - it's allpart of healing, and anyone who's going through it out there, it'sOK to cry. It's OK to fall on the ground and just scream if youwant to."
The Emmy-nominated "Samantha Who?" star has kept her sense ofhumor intact.
"I've laughed so much in the last three weeks," she said. "Ilove living, and I really love my life, and I knew that from thismoment on it was only going to be good that was going to be coming.Yeah, I'll face challenges, but you can't get any darker than whereI've been. So knowing that in my soul gave me the strength to justsay, `I have to get out there and make this a positive."'
Applegate's cancer was detected early through a doctor-orderedMRI. She said she's starting a program to help women at high riskfor breast cancer to meet the costs of an MRI, which is not alwayscovered by insurance.
Applegate is scheduled to appear on a one-hour TV special,"Stand Up to Cancer," to be aired on ABC, CBS and NBC on Sept. 5to raise funds for cancer research.
She has been nominated for an Emmy and a Golden Globe for theABC show "Samantha Who?", in which she plays a woman who wakesfrom a coma with no memory of who she is.
