Last year, Angelina Jolie had a double mastectomy in a bid to minimise her chances of getting breast cancer. She'd tested positive for the BRCA1 gene, which meant her risk of contracting the disease was somewhere in the regions of 87%.

Speaking from experience, that procedure would not have been a walk in the park. Understatement. For starters, it would've meant having two drains inserted into each armpit for more than a few days. In the grand scheme of things, that would be an incidental measure if it means being able to watch your children grow. Jolie had watched her mother die of Ovarian cancer aged just 56, so her decision to have a double preventative mastectomy was probably made in a heartbeat.

It doesn't just end there, however. The BRCA1 gene also effects the ovaries. The odds of getting it isn't quite as alarming as the 87% chance of breast cancer, but at 50% the likelihood is still too high.

Speaking of the next step, Jolie told Entertainment Weekly: "There’s still another surgery to have, which I haven’t [had] yet... I'll get advice from all these wonderful people who I’ve been talking to, to get through that next stage."

For those of you thinking, "Yeah, great, she's loaded, she can get the best surgery money can buy," look at the bigger picture. She chose to go public because it's a subject you can't be an ostrich about. As it happens, it's something I've to get tested for myself given my family history. Have I done it yet? Nope. But Angelina's just reminded me, cheers for that. 

Speaking in The New York Times last year, she wrote: "I choose not to keep my story private because there are many women who do not know that they might be living under the shadow of cancer. It is my hope that they, too, will be able to get gene tested, and that if they have a high risk they, too, will know that they have strong options."

Hopefully Carol, Bianca and Sonia will get some solace from her words.