Taking Control

Despite all the testing—including MRIs and sonograms—the threat of breast cancer still loomed. "I had this sort of moment where I thought, 'What am I doing?'" René says. "Am I waiting for the day or the year that they finally say, 'Well now you do have breast cancer?' Is that what I'm waiting for?"

René began to look at her options, considering every possible angle with the help of her doctor and a psycho-oncologist. Armed with as much information as possible, René made the decision she felt was right for her—a prophylactic mastectomy.

"I'd been thinking about this for probably two years. This is not a decision that was made overnight or in a vacuum," she says.

Still, René's decision was an emotional one. In the end, she knew she had to do what was right for her children. "I felt like it was important for me to be there for my family, even if a part of me was missing," she says.