UPDATE: Christina Applegate revealed today on Good Morning America that she is "absolutely 100 percent clear and clean" of breast cancer after undergoing a double mastectomy just three weeks ago.
"I'm clear," she told cohost Robin Roberts, herself a cancer survivor, in an interview taped Monday. "It did not spread—they got everything out, so I'm definitely not going to die from breast cancer." (Watch the entire interview here.)
Applegate said that while cancer was only found in one breast, the choice to have both removed was the best one for her.
"My decision, after looking at all the treatment plans that were possibilities for me, the only one that seemed the most logical and the one that was going to work for me was to have a bilateral mastectomy," she said.
"I didn't want to go back to the doctors every four months for testing and squishing and everything. I just wanted to kind of get rid of this whole thing for me. This was the choice that I made and it was a tough one."
The Samantha Who? actress said she will be undergoing breast reconstruction sugery over the next eight months.
"I'm going to have the best boobs in the nursing home," she joked. "And you know, I'm going to have cute boobs till I'm 90."
The 36-year-old actress, whose mom also battled—and survived—the disease, announced earlier this month that she had been diagnosed with an early-stage form of breast cancer and was undergoing treatment.
Applegate said on GMA that she has been getting regular mammograms since she turned 30. A second MRI, part of the follow-up from a biopsy she had last year, revealed the cancer.
"I was so mad and I—I just remember I was—I was just shaking," she told Roberts. "And then also immediately, I had to go into…'take-care-of-business mode,' which was…I asked them, 'What do I do now? What—what is it that I do? I get a doctor, I get a surgeon, I get an oncologist? What do I do?' "
Apparently she did what was right for her, which included penciling in all the help she needed and switching to a macrobiotic diet.
The poster girl for preventive care, who found out in July that she had been nominated for her first lead-actress Emmy, is slated to appear alongside Charlize Theron, Meryl Streep and Jennifer Aniston on the one-hour special Stand Up to Cancer, which airs Sept. 5 on NBC, ABC and CBS.
(Originally published Aug. 18, 2008, at 4:25 p.m. PT.)
Image:© 2008, , ABC
