Wanda Sykes To Ellen: “I Had Breast Cancer And A Double Mastectomy” (Video)

Wanda Sykes, a comedian and recently-out lesbian, appeared on “The Ellen Show” and told Ellen Degeneres she had had breast cancer and had a double mastectomy — also known as a bilateral mastectomy – in February. “I had breast cancer. Yeah, I know it’s scary,” Sykes said. The 47-year old married mother of twins says she found out only because she had undergone breast reduction surgery and the post-surgery pathology found evidence of cancer.

WATCH: Don Lemon And Wanda Sykes Both Say: I Used To Try To Pray The Gay Away

“I had real big boobs and I just got tired of knocking over stuff. Every time I eat — oh lord,” said Sykes. “I’d carry a Tide stick everywhere I go. My back was sore so it was time to have a reduction.”

“At least with the LGBT issues we get a parade, we get a float, it’s a party,” Sykes joked, adding she opted for the double mastectomy because there’s a good deal of cancer in her family. She says, “I’m not good at staying on top of things.”

“It wasn’t until after the reduction, in the lab work, the pathology, that they found that I had DCIS in my left breast,” Sykes said, adding, “I was very, very lucky, because DCIS is basically stage zero cancer,” DCIS is medically known as “ductal carcinoma in situ.”

“I had the choice of, you can go back every three months and get it checked. Have a mammogram, MRI every three months just to see what it’s doing,” Sykes said to Ellen. “But I’m not good on keeping on top of stuff. I mean — I’m sure I’m overdue for an oil change and a teeth cleaning already,” she quipped.

Sykes also said she didn’t want to become a cancer poster-child. “How many things could I have? Black, lesbian, and I’m like I can’t be the poster child for everything.”

READ: Wanda Sykes Takes On Chris Rock, Roland Martin Over Tracy Morgan

The L.A. Times calls the procedure, “aggressive treatment,” and notes that the “National Cancer Institute describes DCIS as a collection of abnormal cells inside the lining of a breast duct. ‘Many doctors don’t consider DCIS to be cancer,’ according to this explainer, and some women would suffer no harm from it if left untreated. But in other cases, DCIS progresses and becomes invasive breast cancer – the dangerous kind. The problem is that there’s no way to predict which cases of DCIS are harmless and which will become life-threatening. However, experts agree that when caught at this early stage, the prognosis for women is “excellent.”

In Sykes’ case, she told DeGeneres that she didn’t want to take any chances, especially since cancer runs on her mother’s side of the family. Apparently, she did not reveal whether she has a mutation in her BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes, which increases a woman’s lifetime risk of breast cancer from 12% to about 60%.

“I had both breasts removed, because now I have zero chance of having breast cancer,” she told DeGeneres.

Well, not exactly. A double mastectomy certainly reduces one’s risk of breast cancer, but it doesn’t actually eliminate it, according to the Mayo Clinic.

The show airs Monday, September 26.

Apologies — the video is auto-start — no way to change it!

http://www.eonline.com/static/videoplayer/platform_players/swf/CEGDynamicPlayer.swf