It's said two out of three ain't bad, but when they are your odds of breast cancer it is a different story.
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Robyn Smith, of Gungahlin, was in a supermarket when she received the news.
"I had a look at my email and I looked down at my kids and I said, 'Wow, it's really important that I be around for as long as I can'."
It was March 2013, and a few months earlier Ms Smith had found out she had a mutation in the gene BRCA2, like her mother who now lives with ovarian cancer.
Two months later Hollywood actor and refugee advocate Angelina Jolie sparked a worldwide rush for genetic testing when she revealed she had undergone a preventive double mastectomy, aged 37, after learning she carried a faulty BRCA1 gene and had an 87 per cent risk of developing breast cancer.
The rush spread to Canberra, with a 400 per cent increase in the following three months in referrals for women seeking advice about their breast cancer risk and the possibility of genetic testing.
The ACT Genetic Service's Linda Warwick said referral numbers at the service for the last 18 months had been 200 per cent more than prior to the Jolie announcement.
Numbers of those who actually had the blood test for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes at The Canberra Hospital were up 50 per cent in the financial year after the star's declaration.
They were a more moderate 25 per cent higher in 2014-15.
ACT Health figures showed 80 women had mastectomies in public hospitals in Canberra last year, up from 63 the year before.
There had been only 23 in the year to May. Another 40 mastectomies occurred in Calvary Private Hospital last year.
Details on how many were preventive were not available.
For Ms Smith, pregnant with her third child, the decision on whether to remove her breasts, and, if she chooses, her ovaries, is not one she has to make yet.
Annual mammograms and MRIs and wide research make sure she has the information to make the right decision.
"At this stage it's not all that emotional for me," she said.
"You don't think about things like when you have your breast removed you lose all feeling, they'll be cold in winter, they're never going to look or feel the same, so there's things that women face all the time that I haven't faced yet that I'm sure I'll face one day, and that would be emotional."
