A few recent milestones dot the timeline of Megan O’Connor’s life. Graduating with a degree in human biology and psychology in May 2014 is one. Being a double mastectomy recipient is another.

O’Connor made the decision to undergo the invasive surgery at age 20, the summer after her junior year at MSU. After testing positive for a mutation in her BRCA1 gene, which significantly increases a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer, she thought it was the right thing to do.

“The first hospital we went to said, ‘You’re too young to make this decision. You don’t understand the repercussions of it,’” O’Connor said.

But with a history of breast cancer in her family, she didn’t want to be a ticking time bomb.

A carried gene

O’Connor’s grandmother died from breast cancer at age 36. After that, both her mom and aunt were worried they would receive the same shattering diagnosis.

O’Connor’s mother, Kathy O’Connor, said a black cloud hung over their heads for some time.

“We had biopsies over the years and were very cautious,” Kathy O’Connor said. “My sister then talked me into getting the gene test with her.”

Kathy O’Connor tested positive. Megan O’Connor’s aunt was also positive — for the gene and for breast cancer.

“She did a self-exam after she found out she had the gene, and that’s when she found the lump on her breast,” Megan O’Connor’s cousin Alex Klenk said.

Immediately, Megan O’Connor’s aunt started chemotherapy, and her mom had a double mastectomy surgery.

“It’s hard because at the same time, you have your sister who’s fighting for her life and then you have my mom who’s looking at the future,” Megan O’Connor said.

She said she couldn’t imagine being in her mom’s shoes.

“I felt like she felt guilty,” Megan O’Connor said. “Like, ‘Well, I feel bad that you have it, but (I don’t and) I can avoid that whole path.’”

As she went through her surgery, Kathy O’Connor said she talked about the process with her daughters.

“And boy, I kept a lot of my pain inside because I knew my girls may test positive for it one day,” Kathy O’Connor said.

A no-brainer

When Megan O’Connor was 19, that positive result came.

She followed her gut after testing positive and went through with the double mastectomy, but the fact that doctors thought she was “too young” initially concerned her.

“So my first question was, ‘If you’re saying this, what am I getting myself into? Why are you telling me not to do this?’” Megan O’Connor said.

She said their main answer was that she wouldn’t be able to breastfeed her own child.

“It’s a no-brainer situation and there’s only one negative,” Kathy O’Connor said. “But it’s breast feeding your own child or saving your life.”

Megan O’Connor said doctors also told her it could affect her body image if she didn’t look normal after the procedure.

“I don’t see how that works,” Megan O’Connor said. “It’s like a free boob job and if they screw that up, you get it fixed.”

Megan O’Connor largely based her choice on what she heard of her grandmother’s experiences battling breast cancer and seeing the challenges her mother and aunt faced.

“I feel like it was an easy decision just because I always felt like I knew the outcome,” Megan O’Connor said. “I had an inkling that I knew I was positive.”

Leading up to her mastectomy, she said it really helped that the girls she lived with were comfortable with it and could even joke about it with her.

“Where, with a lot of people, I’ve noticed it’s almost a sticky subject and they don’t want to know too much,” Megan O’Connor said. “They’re interested, but at the same time, they don’t want to dig.”

Megan O’Connor chose to wait until the week after her junior year to receive the mastectomy so she could recover at home. There, she would be close to the hospital and wouldn’t have to worry about tasks like lugging a backpack around campus.

But Megan O’Connor still completed an online class after her surgery.

“It was really painful and I’m not a super big fan of taking drugs, so I tried to put it off for as long as I could until I had to take something,” Megan O’Connor said.

An empowering move

Mastectomies have also affected members of the family beyond Megan O’Connor and her mother. Though Megan O’Connor’s younger sister Kacie O’Connor tested negative for the gene, her sister Lexi O’Connor is positive.

Megan O’Connor said she told Lexi O’Connor it was OK to make her own decision, but urged her to think of it differently. She asked Lexi O’Connor if she wanted to fight the disease after a diagnosis, or be proactive and possibly save her own life.

Megan O’Connor said she has told others the same thing — that getting a double mastectomy is a chance to control your life.

“Would you like to wake up one day and feel something?” Megan O’Connor said. “That’s your life and you are now fighting for your life, when you had the chance to take a preventive measure and you could’ve avoided that.”

It’s not a scary thing, Megan O’Connor said. She thinks being able to steer your future is actually empowering.

“It’s all about the way you look at it and if you want to be that way, you can roll the dice, but in the end, is it really worth it?” Megan O’Connor said. “Because you might not even get it if you have the gene, but do you want to sit there and worry?”

She said her worries faded after the mastectomy drastically reduced her original 98 percent chance of getting breast cancer.

“By having the surgery, I could still possibly get breast cancer, but it would be easier to detect, and I’d have under like a 1 1/2 percent, or 3 percent chance,” Megan O’Connor said.

To Megan O’Connor, breast cancer awareness month is a way to bring the disease into people’s minds and conversations. People can get information about it, and learn how to check for it.

“I hope that all the money they’re bringing in (does) find a cure, so when my children have children, they have a different alternative to be proactive,” Kathy O’Connor said.

Through October and breast cancer awareness month, Megan O’Connor said she wants to convey that breast cancer is not necessarily bad.

“It’s a bad thing, but you don’t have to think about it that way,” Megan O’Connor said. “It could be a chance to change your life, and it’s a chance for you to ...”

Klenk finished, “... to be hopeful about what’s possible.”