Christina Applegate, our October cover star, opens up about her battle with breast cancer and how she rebounded from her health crisis a stronger, happier person and driven to make a difference.

Christina is also the ambassador for Lee National Denim Day – on October 2nd Lee in collaboration with Christina’s foundation, Right Action for Women, invites companies to participate in Denim Day where their employees wear their jeans to work in exchange for a $5 contribution.

A sense of humor can be the best remedy:

“I laughed more in the hospital than I ever have in my life, making fun of all the weird things that were happening to me. My friends would walk in with this sad look, and I would throw something at them and say, ‘Come on! This isn’t the end of the world!’”

On meeting other cancer survivors:

“There’s a real kinship when we meet. We hold each other tight because we know where the other has been: to hell and back.”

On joining other breast cancer survivors at a “Stand Up to Cancer” benefit:

“Backstage, Jennifer Aniston said something like, ‘I don’t like having to see my three girlfriends up there, but I am so proud of you.’ That was nice.”

On her new breasts (after a reconstructive surgery following a double mastectomy):

“It’s really hard because they just aren’t the same—and I had really good ones. If you have boobs you don’t like, you can go and choose the size you want, and then get a brand-new present. But it’s different [when it’s not your choice]. But I hold on to the fact that I don’t have to wear a bra, which is great!”

Overeating during her recent trip to Italy :

“If I see another Caprese salad, I’m going to lose it! We kind of went balls out.”

Her boyfriend, Martyn Lenoble, was her rock through her battle with cancer:

“I don’t think I would have been able to get through any of it without him”

On recent engagement rumors:

“Can a girl please wear a ring on her left hand and not have it be all, ‘Is she engaged?’”

She focuses on today:

“I’ve never been one to pull the covers over my head. I have to push through things.”

Her newly adopted set of life rules:

“If you get too caught up in the outer, you forget about the inner.”

Christina’s inspiration to start her foundation, Right Action for Women:

“I became really passionate about people who are at high risk having the same opportunity to get this sort of testing. Some insurance companies consider the tests exploratory, which is just ridiculous. I mean, it saved my life!”

On meeting a woman touched by her cause:

“It was pretty heavy. She was crying and holding me and said, ‘Thank you for saving my life.’ When that happens, you can’t help but think ‘OK I’ve done the right thing.”

To find out more log on to: www.womenshealthmag.com

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A smiling Christina Applegate graces the cover of People magazine’s “Most Beautiful” issue.

The 37-year-old actress, who recently battled breast cancer, certainly has much to celebrate: She says she’s finally found her “perfect type” in her new beau, Dutch musician Martyn Lenoble (Mar-TAN Luh-NOBLE).

Applegate had a double mastectomy last July and reconstructive surgery months later. The star of ABC’s “Samantha Who?” calls Lenoble an “angel” who loves her “from head to toe.”

According to Applegate, Lenoble has been her “rock” and gave her reason to live - and smile.

The annual “Most Beautiful” issue features 100 famous faces, including Michelle Obama, Zac Efron and Cindy Crawford posing without makeup. It hits stands Friday.

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Stub it out, Christina!

Breast cancer survivor Christina Applegate was snapped puffing on a cigarette as she strolled down a Los Angeles street.

The 36-year-old “Married. . .With Children” star proclaimed herself cancer-free just last summer after undergoing a double mastectomy.

She even had the courage to show off her reconstructed figure during a scene from her hit comedy “Samantha Who?” just weeks after the operation.
Applegate’s mother also beat breast cancer and the star said her mom’s fight inspired her to beat the disease.

Applegate also appeared at the star-studded Stand Up To Cancer telethon that raised millions to fight the disease last September.

Fellow cancer survivors Sheryl Crow and Melissa Etheridge hugged Applegate in a moving moment onstage at the event.

Doctors say smoking is the leading cause of lung cancer and several other forms of the disease. It also causes heart disease and other killer ailments.

The link to breast cancer is less clear-cut, although some studies have shown women who smoke are more likely to develop breast cancer.

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Christina Applegate Arriving At The Late Show With David Letterman

The California-born actress admits she has longed to return to theatre since her stint in the 2005 revival of Sweet Charity, which earned her a Tony Award nomination for best actress in a musical.

And while she’s currently filming her U.S. TV comedy Samantha Who? in Los Angeles, Applegate insists returning to the Big Apple is among her many ambitions, because the city feels like a second home.

She says, “I’ve always felt so safe and good here. I felt like myself. I want to come back here and do some Broadway. I want to do small films, I want to continue with the show, I want to travel.”

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Christina Applegate says fighting breast cancer “sucks,” but you shouldn’t feel sorry for her.

“I still have quite a process until this is done,” the actress says in the new issue of TV Guide. “Yes, it’s hard. It sucks. But I’m not a victim.”

She will undergo reconstructive surgery near her 37th birthday, at the end of November. She had a double mastectomy in July.

Applegate - a workaholic who clocks 14 to 16 hour days on Samantha Who - changed her outlook on life after her spring diagnosis.

“I started looking for a beach house the day I found out I had this little disease,” she says. “You just kind of go, ‘What are you waiting for to get the things that you want and the things you dream of?’

“I don’t own tomorrow or yesterday - today is all I’ve got,” she adds. “And if I don’t make today good, then I’m only gonna’ be p–ssed off tomorrow!”

Applegate has also taken time for herself to grieve. Just weeks before having both her breasts removed this summer, two of her cats died and her ex-boyfriend, Lee Grivas, was found dead of an apparent drug overdose.

“To be honest, I think that was even more difficult and more painful than anything else,” she says of Grivas’ death. “It still is a lot of the time.”

She draws from her recent painful experiences for her day job as a sitcom star.

“I think I’m bringing a lot of me now to Sam, just in the sense of, ‘This too shall pass,’ you know?” she says.

Adds executive producer Don Todd: “She hasn’t missed a beat.

“Even though I think she’s probably suffering quite a bit physically, and obviously the emotional stuff comes and goes. It’s just not in her to let what she’s [going through] affect the work. She has that ability to shut it down like a guillotine falling.

Applegate’s co-star, Jean Smart, agrees.

“Christina’s a trouper with a capital T…I feel very maternal towards her,” she says. “Very often, I tell her, ‘We don’t need you sitting off camera for this scene. Why don’t you go to your dressing room and put your feet up?’ She won’t do it.”

Applegate - a co-executive producer on the show - says she’s slowly learning to chill out.

“I’m very much a push-through-it kind of gal,” she says. “But now I don’t. I speak up for myself a lot. If I feel tired, I ask for the time that I need…I’m living such a different like than I did before.”

The actress, currently linked to 39-year-old rocker Martyn Lenoble, says she feels responsible for bringing awareness to breast cancer through her celebrity.

“I think I have a bigger responsibility now, and it’s a welcome one…I love making people laugh,” she said on Good Morning America in July. “But if I can make them think and be proactive in their life, that’s way more important.”

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Christina Applegate is taking the long view of her battle with breast cancer - the really long view. Speaking on ABC News’ “Good Morning America” in her first interview since announcing her diagnosis earlier this month, the “Samantha Who?” star said she had a double mastectomy three weeks ago. She’ll undergo reconstructive surgery over the next eight months.

“I’m going to have cute boobs ’til I’m 90, so there’s that,” she joked in the interview, which aired Tuesday. “I’ll have the best boobs in the nursing home. I’ll be the envy of all the ladies around the bridge table.”

The 36-year-old actress elected to remove both breasts even though the disease was contained in one breast. She said she is now cancer-free.

Applegate called the operation a logical decision. Her mother battled breast cancer, and she tested positive for the BRCA1 gene mutation linked to breast and ovarian cancer.

“I just wanted to kind of be rid of it,” she said. “So this was the choice I made and it was a tough one.”

The experience has been an emotional roller coaster, she said.

“Sometimes, you know, I cry and sometimes I scream and I get really angry and I get really like, you know, into wallowing in self-pity sometimes,” she said. “And I think that’s - it’s all part of healing, and anyone who’s going through it out there, it’s OK to cry. It’s OK to fall on the ground and just scream if you want to.”

The Emmy-nominated “Samantha Who?” star has kept her sense of humor intact.

“I’ve laughed so much in the last three weeks,” she said. “I love living, and I really love my life, and I knew that from this moment on it was only going to be good that was going to be coming. Yeah, I’ll face challenges, but you can’t get any darker than where I’ve been. So knowing that in my soul gave me the strength to just say, `I have to get out there and make this a positive.’”

Applegate’s cancer was detected early through a doctor-ordered MRI. She said she’s starting a program to help women at high risk for breast cancer to meet the costs of an MRI, which is not always covered by insurance.

Applegate is scheduled to appear on a one-hour TV special, “Stand Up to Cancer,” to be aired on ABC, CBS and NBC on Sept. 5 to raise funds for cancer research.

She has been nominated for an Emmy and a Golden Globe for the ABC show “Samantha Who?”, in which she plays a woman who wakes from a coma with no memory of who she is.

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Christina Applegate opened up about her recent  breast cancer diagnosis on GMA and below is what she told them. I am posting it whole (because ABC has not embeded the video) and I think it is a must read for every woman. Her courage inspires me and for some reason as I type this and after seeing her interview on GMA I can’t stop crying. A woman made by her breasts, shows living life is so much more important, so appreciate life like she is. 

“I’m clear. Absolutely 100 percent clear and clean,” the “Samantha Who?” said. “It did not spread — they got everything out, so I’m definitely not going to die from breast cancer.”

But the price she paid for that peace of mind was high.

To be sure the cancer would be completely excised, and that there would be a reduced chance of it returning despite Applegate testing positive for the BRCA1 breast cancer gene, the actress opted to have both her breasts removed in an operation known as a prophylactic double mastectomy even though cancerous lumps were only found in one breast.

“My decision, after looking at all the treatment plans that were possibilities for me, the only one that seemed the most logical and the one that was going to work for me was to have a bilateral mastectomy,” Applegate said.

Three weeks ago, she had the dramatic operation rather than undergoing other longer-term treatments like radiation or chemotherapy.

“I didn’t want to go back to the doctors every four months for testing and squishing and everything. I just wanted to kind of get rid of this whole thing for me. This was the choice that I made and it was a tough one.”

Though she will be undergoing breast reconstruction surgery over the next eight months, Applegate said the emotional toll has been heavy.

“Sometimes, you know, I cry. And sometimes I scream. And I get really angry. And I get really upset, you know, into wallowing in self-pity sometimes. And I think that it’s all part of the healing,” she said.

But Applegate is healthy and calm now, due to both her inflappible sense of humor — “I’m going to have the best boobs in the nursing home,” — and the powerful inspiration she gained from her mother, Nancy Priddy, a repeat breast cancer survivor.

“She’s been sort of this quiet warrior in the back and has been a great support, and just telling me that I was going to be OK. And I knew I was going to be OK. I’ve watched her,” she said.

“I’ve watched her have a mastectomy, and then I’ve watched her go through two years of chemotherapy and eight surgeries and a hyterectomy. I’ve watched this woman survive both those things. So, for me, there was always that sense that I was going to be OK, no matter what.”

Applegate is also going to be OK due to her own vigilance. She started getting mammograms six years ago after she turned 30 and said the cancer was found through the second of two MRI tests as a follow-up from a biopsy she had last year.

“If this had been caught a year from now, or when I was 40, I probably wouldn’t be able to live through this,” Applegate said.

The MRI Applegate under went, she said, is capable of seeing cells, meaning it can detect cancerous cells even before a tumor forms.

The problem for many other women, though, is that this type of MRI is expensive and often, health insurance does not cover it. So Applegate is starting a foundation to help high risk women meet the costs.

“It’s incredibly expensive,” she said. “So, for me, one of the things that when this is all happened, was that I’m putting together a program that’s going to raise money to pay for MRIs for women who are at high risk.” Applegate defines “high risk” as anyone who has had breast cancer in their family, or are “gene positive” for the BRCA1 gene that is linked to breast cancer.

“We’re also going to pay for the BRCA testing, because that’s very, very expensive.”

Now, with the cancer behind her and recovery ahead, Applegate is optimistic.

“You know, I really love living and I really love my life. I knew from this moment on, it was only going to be good and that was going to be coming,” she said.

“Yea, I’m going to face challenges, but you can’t get any darker than where I’ve been. So, just knowing that in my soul gave me the strength to just say, ‘I’ve got to — I have to get out there and — and make this positive.”

“And you know, I’m going to have cute boobs till I’m 90.”

Way to go Christina Applegate, may your recovery only be easy!!!

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Christina Applegate is going to break her silence tomorrow on ABC’s Good Morning America about her battle with cancer. She gives Robin Roberts (just another reason for her to remind us she had brest cancer, enough already we get it you survived breast cancer…movie on.) an update on health.

“I’m clear,” the star of “Samantha Who?” said. “Absolutely 100 percent clear and clean. … They got everything out so I’m definitely not going to die from breast cancer.”

That is great news from Christian Applegate. Hopefully her diagnosis will get more women her age to get tested for breast cancer. It was her early diagnosis that led to doctors to catching it early and just two weeks after announcing she had breast cancer she is telling the world that is 100% cancer-free. You go girl!!!

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