She made the difficult decision to have both her breasts and her ovaries removed as a preventative measure. Her ovaries were taken out first, followed by the double mastectomy in 2013 — and her risk was lowered to five per cent.
The pathology report revealed no traces of cancer in Maltese’s ovaries, fallopian tubes and breast tissue.
“I was thinking, ‘Great. I did what I had to do,’” she said. “I felt a weight lifted off my shoulders and I was so relieved and happy that I did make that decision.”
Then, a few months ago she started feeling unwell. An abscess developed under her right arm and wouldn’t heal.
