JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – It was the day before Thanksgiving and Lashelle Slater-Frye was 35 years old.
"Here we are, the family, getting ready to celebrate Thanksgiving, and I discover that I don't feel good," she said.
Slater-Frye went to the doctor just to be safe and they wouldn't let her leave. She was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer and told she had four and a half months to live.
She told doctors to remove both her breasts as a precaution, but they only took one.
"I told my doctor -- I made a joke about it -- I said, 'I paid you to take two, and I want half my money back because I still have one left,'" Slater-Frye said. "So I didn't want to have that threat on me again."
It's the same reason Angelina Jolie had a double mastectomy, and many people are applauding her courage.
"That completely blew me away," Slater-Frye said. "I'd heard of women doing it, but a woman of her caliber being in the limelight and Hollywood and everything."
"I think it's even scary for women who do have breast cancer already to undergo it, so the fact that she's doing it as a preventative measure is really impressive and brave," said Ashley Hughes.
"If it's to prevent cancer, I'm all for it," Mike Block said.
Doctors say Jolie had a genetic test done called a BRACAnalysis that showed she had an 87 percent chance of developing breast cancer, and she had already lost her mom to breast cancer.
"The doctor can do either a blood test or a saliva test in the office, like I do, and it's usually covered by your insurance company," said Dr. Todd Rasner, OBGYN and National Myriad Speaker.
When results come back positive, some doctors say more and more women opt to have their breasts removed before it's too late.
"I've had some who go the conservative route, I've had some that go the more aggressive route," Rasner said. "They just don't want to live with that idea in their head that at some point this breast cancer is going to pop up."