Sofia Vergara Documents Her Mammogram on Instagram: ‘You Have to Do It’

Sofia Vergara is taking her health seriously — and she’s encouraging women everywhere to do the same.

On Friday, Vergara, 45, supported breast cancer awareness month by sharing a short video documenting her latest mammogram. Standing in front of a mammography unit wearing a robe, she wrote “You have to do it!!!!”

And this isn’t the Modern Family star’s first time advocating for women to get get their yearly checkup. In 2016, she also posted a mammogram selfie captioned, “It’s that time of the year.”

The American Cancer Society suggests that around the age of 40, women should start thinking about thinking about getting annual mammograms, and that by the time they’re 45 they should be getting them done yearly.

In 2011, during an interview with ABC’s Nightline, the Colombian-born actress revealed that she had been diagnosed with thyroid cancer when she was 28 and had to get her thyroid gland removed.

“I was very young, and when they tell you that word, it’s like, ‘What are you talking about? ‘” Vergara said at the time. “You always think, ‘death.’ You don’t — that’s all you think when they tell you that. So it was — it was pretty scary.”

She added that she “never felt sick” and that it was “a nightmare” having to go through all the operations and treatments when she actually feeling healthy.

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In 2015 she opened up to Cosmopolitan UK about how having cancer at such a young age taught her to really appreciate her life.

“When you are confronted with something dramatic like the word ‘cancer’ you look at what is important to you. I was lucky because out of all the cancers, this was one you can remove and treat. It could have been a lot, lot worse,” Vergara said. “My son was very young so I didn’t mention the word ‘cancer’ to him, because I didn’t want to create any fear or drama. I told him I had to go to the doctor, and because mine was in the thyroid – in the neck – I had to wait for it to heal and have treatment… It’s amazing when you go through something like that – you appreciate what you have and try not to dwell on things you don’t have.”

Vergara had her son Manolo when she was 20 years old, two years after marrying her high school sweetheart, Joe Gonzalez. The couple split in 1993.

“I was really young when I divorced his father, so I raised him trying to set the best example and give him the best that I could,” she previously told PEOPLE.

Now, her little boy is a grown man, Vergara said she savors every flattering remark someone makes about him.

“Every time people compliment me about my son, it is very rewarding,” she revealed. “When people compliment me on him, on how well mannered, how charming, funny and well-behaved he is, it makes all the sacrifices worthwhile.”

Vergara is currently married to actor Joe Manganiello.