SALINA, Kan. — The Kansas City Chiefs are pushing their cancer awareness initiative "Crucial Catch."
KSHB 41's Megan Abundis is sharing a survivor’s story of her crucial catch.
Cindy Crehan’s discovered she had a breast cancer known as Ductal Cell Carcinoma herself, twice.
“It was a hitch in the gut; a sucker punch, you don’t want to have that, you never thought you'd have to do that,” Crehan said. “But I’m not one of those people that rolls over and dies, I’m not doing that.”
If you’ve had any conversation with Crehan, you can tell that was never an option.
“This past year I’ve had a total of five surgeries, it’s an up and down thing,” she said. “You go three steps forward, two steps back, sometimes five.”
Crehan lives in Abilene, Kansas, and is a personal trainer and group fitness manager in Salina, Kansas.
“I love working with people, they come to me because they want to feel better, to be more functional,” she said. “When I was younger it was about how you look, now it’s about enjoying life, it’s a lifestyle for a lot of people. Now you can go play with the grandkids, you can do whatever you want to do with them.”
She and her husband are Chiefs fans and tell KSHB 41 they have so many friends and family supporting them.
“I have four grandkids, three kids, lots of family around,” she said.
Crehan said she found a lump last summer in her breast.
“I found it early, I was so lucky,” she said.
After a lumpectomy and radiation, she later found another lump.
“It was on the other side, I found another lump,” she said. “I was so angry.”
She opted for a full mastectomy.
“If you can prevent something, let’s prevent something as much as we can,” she said. “It was scary, I got to say it was scary, but my husband and my family were all there, if you have support it's even better.”
Her crucial catch — finding it herself both times.
“Early detection, pay attention to your body, know it, take action if you think somethings funky,” Crehan said.
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