Victoria Gotti of New York says she was diagnosed with breast cancer last fall, but she kept it secret from almost everyone including her sons.

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"The day I found out, the day I got my mammogram and the doctor told me I had breast cancer, it was in mid-November," the 42-year-old single mother of three sons told the New York Daily News. "I lost 25 pounds, I was so exhausted, I could barely lift my arms. My producers were asking questions."

Gotti said she had vowed to tell her sons 18-year-old Carmine, 17-year-old John and 14-year-old Frank about her cancer last month, when the reality show "Growing Up Gotti" on Cable's A&E took them to Italy.

Once there, Gotti said she didn't want to ruin the trip, but she told her sons earlier this month.

"They caught it early and the prognosis is good," Gotti said of the cancer.

Gotti has struggled with health problems before. She had been told she would never be able to have children and she suffers from a heart ailment that requires a pacemaker -- but the defibrillator has been recalled as defective and she will have heart surgery to have it replaced.