Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz has a message for women under 40: Get checked for breast cancer – early and often.

The Florida Democrat has undergone seven surgeries, including a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery — all within the past year — after she discovered a lump in her breast during a self-exam at the age of 41. That was just two months after her first mammography. Because she was also at higher risk for ovarian cancer, she had her ovaries removed, as well. Wasserman Schultz has not only been waging a private battle for her health, but she’s been balancing life at home with three young kids, and a career in Congress at the same time — all without missing a vote on the Hill. She’s quite the wonder woman.

Wasserman Schultz decided to go public in an effort to launch a national education campaign to educate young women between the ages of 15 and 39 about the importance of awareness and self-exams.

Wasserman Schultz, 42, told The Miami Herald:

I wanted to be able to not just stand up and say, ‘I’m a breast cancer survivor’ … I wanted to find a gap and try to fill it … Young women go skipping along through their life, thinking they’re invincible, not worrying about breast cancer because they think of it as an older woman’s disease … It just pains me to know that younger women, because they don’t know and because they’re blown off by physicians many times, and because they squeeze their eyes shut and hope that it’s nothing, that their death rate is much higher.

Bravo, Rep. Wasserman Schultz! Your courage and story could help save many women from this deadly disease.

Watch Wasserman Schultz’s Monday interview on "Good Morning America" below: