Two
years after Angelina Jolie had a double mastectomy to prevent the onset
of breast cancer, the actress has revealed that she has since had her
ovaries removed due to a second health scare.
The 39-year-old Maleficent star published a lengthy opinion piece, titled Angelina Jolie Pitt: Diary Of A Surgery in the New York Times on Monday explaining her decision.
Her
revelation comes as Brad Pitt was seen comforting his wife at Shiloh
and Zahara's soccer match. It's now clear the couple's affection came
during Angelina's agonizing wait to establish whether she had cancer - a
fear which ultimately prompted her to have surgery.
With
her ovaries and Fallopian tubes now gone, the mother-of-six has entered
early menopause and will not be able to have any more children, she
writes in her candid, deeply personal essay.
Tough choice: Angelina and Brad were
pictured at Shiloh and Zahara's soccer match on March 15 - Angelina was
weighing her surgery decision at this time
Signs of support: The famous couple
shared a rare public kiss at the game - it's now clear it was a time of
turmoil while Angelina feared she had cancer and was contemplating
surgery
Loving: Angelina reveals in her op-ed that Brad flew from France immediately after hearing his wife was at risk of cancer
In
May 2013, Brad Pitt's wife famously had her breasts surgically removed
after she found out she was carrying a genetic mutation that greatly
increased her risk of potentially fatal breast cancer.
In
the op-ed piece, Jolie explains that the mutation in the BRCA1 gene
gave her an estimated 87 per cent risk of breast cancer and 50 per cent
risk of ovarian cancer.
The
director of Unbroken and the upcoming By The Sea, starring her newlywed
husband, lost her mother, grandmother and aunt to cancer.
According
to Jolie, she had been planning to undergo surgery to remove her
ovaries and Fallopian tubes for a while now, but a call from her doctor
two weeks ago made the procedure more urgent.
A
blood test detected potential anomalies linked to the protein CA-125,
which is used to monitor ovarian cancer, Jolie's doctor told her, urging
the actress to see her surgeon, who also had treated her late mother.
'I went through what I imagine thousands of other women have felt,' she writes.
'I
told myself to stay calm, to be strong, and that I had no reason to
think I wouldn't live to see my children grow up and to meet my
grandchildren.'
Survivor:
In May 2013, the star of Maleficent had a double mastectomy to prevent
breast cancer. Jolie is pictured left at a World War Z premiere in June
of that year, just weeks after the surgery and right in Iraq in her work
for the UN in January
Runs in the family: Jolie pictured
with her mother Marcheline Bertrand, who died in January 2007 at the age
of 56 after an eight-year battle with ovarian cancer
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