Miss America Hopeful Allyn Rose To Undergo Double Mastectomy
Nov. 15 2012, Published 11:30 a.m. ET
By Breaking Celebrity News Staff
Miss America contestant Allyn Rose says she's planning to undergo a double mastectomy within the next two years because of a rare genetic condition in her family that causes breast cancer, the disease which took her mother's life eight years ago.
"The idea that I could wake up one day and not have the same body that I did the day before is very scary," Rose, 24, told People. "But I also realize my mom was diagnosed at 27. That's three years away from me.
"I'm not going to let my fear of losing this part of my femininity stop me from living."
Rose said the chromosomal disease that eventually took her mother from her "manifests in male children, but there have been studies that women who are the carriers of it have almost a 75 percent likely chance of contracting breast cancer -- it's a very strange change in our genetic code -- almost all of the women in my family have passed away from it."
Rose, a model/paralegal, said that at 24, the timing is right to take the bold precaution.
"My mom had her right breast removed at 27, but at 47 or 48, it came back in her left breast," the Washington, D.C. native recalled. "It was already stage three.