Christina Applegate Talks About Double Mastectomy

After announcing the news earlier this summer that she had been diagnosed with the early stages of breast cancer, actress Christina Applegate now says she has received treatment and is currently free of the disease.

"I'm clear," the Samantha Who? star, 36, told Good Morning America on Tuesday. "Absolutely 100 percent clear and clean. It did not spread. They got everything out, so I'm definitely not going to die from breast cancer.''

But in order for Christina to rid herself of the cancer, she had to make a major, life-changing decision to have both of her breasts removed three weeks ago. "After looking at all the treatment plans available to me... I had a prophylactic double mastectomy."

"Sometimes I cry. Sometimes I scream," she revealed. "It's all part of healing... it's okay to cry, it's okay to fall on the ground and just scream if you want to."

Christina will have reconstructive surgery over the next eight months, and she says she's looking forward to having her new, ever-youthful breasts. "I'm going to have cute boobs until I'm 90," she joked. "I'm going to have the best boobs in the nursing home."

As the daughter of a breast cancer survivor, Christina has been getting tested regularly since the age of 30. Still, the original diagnosis was shocking to her.

"I was so pissed off. I was so mad," She said candidly. "I was just shaking and — and then also immediately, I had to go into take-care-of-business-mode."

Her doctor's decision to have Christina undergo an expensive MRI scan, rather than the standard mammogram, is what she attributes to saving her life. "If this had been caught a year from now, or when I was 40, I probably wouldn't be able to live through this," she explained.

Though MRIs are the best way to detect cancer, they are costly and rarely covered by insurance policies. So Christina is attempting to leverage her star-power to change that. "I'm putting together a program that's going to raise money to pay for MRIs for women who are at high risk," she explained. This program will also help to pay for expensive gene testing for women in the high-risk category.

On Sept. 5, the actress will appear on Stand Up to Cancer, a unique televised fundraiser that will air on ABC, CBS and NBC.