A beloved Wisconsin radio show host has had a double mastectomy, and plans to have her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed, after discovering she carries a gene that makes her more at risk of cancer.
Elizabeth Kay, 41, is the host of the 99.1 The MIX – but she’s been talking her listeners through the life-changing surgeries she’s having in a bid to beat the 58 percent risk that she’ll get cancer.
The mom-of-one carries BRCA2, which doctors calculated meant her risk of getting the disease was 58 percent – worse odds than flipping a coin.
After having consultations, she decided to go for a double mastectomy.
Elizabeth Kay posted an instagram picture of herself from her hospital bed today, with the caption: ‘All set, let’s do this. Love my doctors’
She said: ”I’ll have reconstructive surgery, and then I will also have my ovaries and fallopian tubes removed’
She posted an instagram picture of herself from her hospital bed today, with the caption: ‘All set, let’s do this. Love my doctors.’
Kay, who has been on Milwaukee airwaves since 2009, told WISN: ‘We have had a couple of members of our family in the past few years been diagnosed with breast cancer.
‘And then we had another family member get diagnosed and similar in age and that made everyone kind of pause and wonder, ‘OK, this is a hereditary cancer? What does this mean for the rest of us in the family?’
‘I have decided to go ahead and take these preventative measures similar to what Angelina Jolie has done, and have a bilateral mastectomy.
‘Then I’ll have reconstructive surgery, and then I will also have my ovaries and fallopian tubes removed.
‘This is serious. It’s in my family and I am being proactive. I don’t want any part of cancer.
‘And if I can be preventative and I have this information, I’m going to do something with it.’
Kay has been on Milwaukee airwaves since 2009
Kay often posts heartwarming images and clips of her family life, with her husband Eric (right) and teen son Brayson
Kay pictured with her teen son, Brayson
She donated a kidney in March 2021 to a stranger in Kentucky on behalf of her mother-in-law, Camille, so that she could get an even better kidney match through the paired kidney exchange program
After being tested, Kay revealed that her family carried the gene mutation BRCA2, which stands for breast cancer gene 2.
It increases the risk of cancers of the breast, ovaries, and fallopian tubes – because the gene provides instructions for making a protein that acts as a tumor suppressor.
When this gene is mutated, is it less effective at creating the tumor-suppressing protein and therefore less effective at keeping any potential cancers at bay.
The BRCA2 protein is also involved in repairing damaged or changed DNA – which, biologically speaking, is what cancer is caused by.
This is not the first time the mom-of-one has gone into surgery.
She donated a kidney in March 2021 to a stranger in Kentucky on behalf of her mother-in-law, Camille, so that she could get an even better kidney match through the paired kidney exchange program.
Kay often posts heartwarming images and clips of her family life, with her husband Eric and teen son Brayson.