A woman at the age of 23 got her both breasts removed after she found that she suffers from a hereditary cancer gene. Pretty Fiona Luscombe has seen her mother and grandfather dying due to breast cancer.

She got herself operated in St Michael’s Hospital in Hayle, Cornwall, nine weeks ago. As of now, she is on the path to recovery. After removing the breasts, they have inserted breast implants.

It is the culprit BRCA2 gene which was the reason that she lost her mother and her grandfather. “I was totally gutted and it took a long time to get my head around it. But I couldn’t sit on it”, she said. “Even though I have the gene I wouldn’t be scanned until I was 30 — and I just couldn’t wait that long”.

She explained how at the age of three she got to know about her mother’s breast cancer and though she recovered, it returned some 13 years later in her lymph nodes, liver and bones. It was at the age of 48 that her mother Brenda died in 2007.

Even former pop star Michelle Heaton, 33, had gone through the same op after she was identified with the same gene last week.

It must be noted that those who have family history of some cancer get themselves checked at regular intervals so that they can be taken care of well at the right time.