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I had breast cancer. I caught it early.

Once I overcame breast cancer, I wasn't afraid of anything anymore.

Cancer is a scary thing and you have to deal with it seriously.

In mid-July 2007, after a routine mammogram, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. As cancer diagnoses go, mine wasn't particularly scary. The affected area was small, and the surgeon seemed to think that a lumpectomy followed by radiation would eradicate the cancerous tissue.

When the doctor told me I had cancer, I was scared.

That's why I talk about the breast cancer: because I want women - and everyone - to stay on top of things and get checked. I know how scary it can be. When I dealt with it, I was like, 'Oh my God.' And I have so many other friends who have gone through it or have suffered a loss.

I had been afraid of breast cancer, as I suspect most women are, from the time I hit adolescence. At that age, when our emerging sexuality is our central preoccupation, the idea of disfigurement of a breast is particularly horrifying.

I have experienced firsthand the tremendous impact breast cancer has on the women who fight it and the loved ones who support them. This is a disease that catches you unaware and, without the right resources, leaves you feeling frightened and alone.

Well, right now, technically, I have no breast cancer.

I lost my mom to breast cancer about three years ago, and it has changed me forever.