After Beth Gary found out she had a deadly breast cancer gene called the “Angelina Jolie gene”, she was given a devastating ultimatum.
At just 33 years old, she either had to undergo several brutal surgeries that removed her breasts, ovaries and fallopian tubes, or was almost certain to develop a disease that would kill her mother and grandmother.
Desperate to see her two children grow up, the mother from Long Island, New York decided to have an oophorectomy in 2021 and a double mastectomy the following year.
She told DailyMail.com: “I knew I had to find a way to break this vicious cycle. “I just couldn’t die at sixty like my grandmother and my mother.
“Every day that I can make sure that I’m healthy is a new day that I’m here with my kids.”
Beth Gary, 35, of Long Island, New York, had her breasts, ovaries and fallopian tubes removed to reduce her risk of cancer. She is pictured above with her husband Mark, 44, and children Callie, now five, and Wes, three
Above is Ms Gary with her mother, who died of pancreatic cancer last year
At the top right is mrs. Gary’s grandmother Joan and her mother Fran
Ms. Gary has a mutation in the BRCA2 gene.
Doctors say a quarter of women with the defective gene will develop tumors before age 50 and 87 percent will develop tumors at some point in their lives.
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Instead of the classic breast cancer marker – a lump – Megan Liscomb (37) noticed visual changes in her breast.
Women with this mutation also have a 30 percent risk of ovarian cancer, compared to one to two percent in the general population, and a higher risk of pancreatic cancer.
Angelina Jolie announced in 2013 that she had her breasts removed after doctors discovered she had the BRCA1 mutation, which also made it almost certain she would suffer from breast cancer.
Ms Gary, now 35, lost her grandmother Joan to ovarian cancer when she was just five years old. Joan was then 61 years old.
Her mother, Fran, survived ovarian cancer as a teenager, but was diagnosed with late-stage pancreatic cancer last year at the age of 68.
She lived just eight weeks after her diagnosis.
On her motivation for the operations, Ms Gary said, fighting back tears: “It was very sad growing up without my grandmother. I was often jealous of the children who had complete families.”
“And now that I’m with my mother, I’m so sad that I lost the best woman I ever knew.
“But now I know my children miss them too.”
Asked if she felt the operations had affected her femininity, Ms Gary said it made her feel “empowered”.
“I felt very empowered to be able to make the decisions myself,” she said.
“I would say that having my ovaries and fallopian tubes removed was a very emotional experience that I didn’t realize how emotional it would be.”
“The removal of my breasts and the subsequent reconstructions were more physical in nature.
“But I don’t feel any different now than before.” Of course it takes time to heal, but I assume both.
“I do everything I did before.” I love kayaking with my husband. We have a gym in our basement where we lifted weights last week.”
Ms Gary discovered she had the mutation when she was 26 and began a strict monitoring programme
She had her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed in 2021, her breasts the following year, and she also underwent reconstructive surgery. Ms Gary said she had also frozen some eggs in case she decided to have children again
Tests at age 26 showed she had the fatal mutation.
At the time, Ms Gary was in a relationship with her now husband, Mark (44), and had no children. So she decided to start a screening program until her family was complete.
She is through one A series of check-ups where she was checked every six months for ovarian cancer and once a year for breast cancer.
However, after giving birth to her children Callie, now five, and Wes, three, she decided to have preventive surgeries at Northwell Health on Long Island.
But just before the operation, she froze some of her eggs in case she ever wanted to have more children in the future.
“I still have my uterus. So if I wanted to carry another child, I could do it,” she said.
“Although I thought my family was perfect, the finality of having my ovaries removed was great.” “I’m still quite young and at an age where I can still have children.”
In May 2021, when she was 33, she underwent surgery to remove her ovaries and fallopian tubes.
She then underwent a preventive double mastectomy with reconstructive surgery on her breasts in February of the following year, when she was 34 years old.
Around this time, her mother was also diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
The BRCA2 gene mutations increase the risk of cancer because they prevent genes from repairing themselves.
It is not clear why they increase the risk of breast, ovarian and fallopian tube cancer, but doctors believe it may be related to changes in hormones.
About one in 500 women in the United States – equivalent to 33 million people – has a mutation in their BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene.
The mutations also increase the risk of men developing breast, pancreatic and prostate cancer.
According to the nonprofit BreastCancer.org, the percentage of women who underwent the procedure in 2002 was about 3.9 percent.
But the surgery came into the limelight in 2012 when Angelina Jolie revealed that she had undergone the preventive procedure.
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Crystal Leahy is an author and health journalist who writes for The Fashion Vibes. With a background in health and wellness, Crystal has a passion for helping people live their best lives through healthy habits and lifestyles.
