At the age of 26, and while she is in good health, Laetitia Mendes chooses to undergo a double preventive mastectomy, an operation which involves having both breasts removed.

It was because she knew she was carrying a genetic mutation that significantly increases the risk of developing breast cancer that the young woman made this painful and radical decision.

She tells us her story.

Photo credit: Krystel Brand

When you decided to have a mastectomy, how did you make that decision?

When I learned that I was carrying the BRCA2 gene, like my sister, my mother had breast cancer.

I quickly had a very clear vision of what was waiting for me.

It was either a mastectomy or a very heavy follow-up: mammography and ultrasound every 6 months.

More MRI, without guarantee that a very aggressive cancer does not develop between two exams, as it happened for my mom.

Your oncogenetician reacted rather badly when you mentioned your desire to undergo a mastectomy, how do you explain it?

She did it wrong, she told me that I did not know in front of what I was going ... I felt like a plague!

Many doctors are reluctant because they do not conceive of removing healthy tissue.

But after the birth of my daughter, and the death of my mother, carried away by cancer, my decision was firm.

So I met several surgeons before finding the right one, the "Dr. Sauveur" as I call him, who understood my request and gave me the support I needed.

After the ablation, there was the reconstruction, which was not simple.

How does one recover from such an ordeal?

It's difficult.

It remains a mourning, a sacrifice, an attack on femininity.

But after the operation I had "a burst of life", I needed to turn all that into a positive force.

I created my makeover company, and based on my sister's idea, inspired by Angelina Jolie's revelation of her own mastectomy , I started writing my book. My little gene, my second chance (released in 2014).

Writing has brought me a lot, and I have done it for my daughter, so that she understands what is part of her own story. Because she too, one day, will have to make this blood test that will know if she is a carrier of BRCA.

You have started your association, Généticancer. Why ?

With Généticancer, I have several objectives: to inform the general public, but also to create a network of godmothers, women who are "passed by there", to support those who are confronted with the same experience.

I also brought together a scientific committee, made up of health professionals including Professor Dominique Stoppa Lyonnet, an oncogenetician.

All the content of the association's website has been validated by this team, which also participated in the realization of an online test, to determine in a few minutes if a consultation and / or genetic screening is recommended.

I led this adventure on my own funds, and with 6000 euros obtained by crowdfuning, while keeping my professional activity.

More information on www.geneticancer.org.