“I had all those thoughts of, ‘Am I going see my children get married or have children of their own?’” said Dr. Jennifer Krupp, an SSM Health maternal fetal specialist, after being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2019. “That was really difficult.”
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The Madison, Wisconsin physician has spent her career caring for women with high-risk pregnancies. She also cares for her own health with an active lifestyle of hiking, running and weightlifting, which is how she found the lump in the first place.
“I got home from the gym, and I was just trying to figure out if the lifts that I was doing were working the muscles that I wanted them to be working,” she said. “That’s when I found it and I got it checked right away.”
Dr. Krupp’s breast surgeon, Dr. Dana Henkel, said her patient was fortunate.
“Not all breast cancers present that way,” said Dr. Henkel. “Her noticing and being aware of her changing body really got her off on the path to getting this taken care of.”
Next came a double mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation.
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“Before the COVID pandemic started, I went to work in between chemo sessions,” said Dr. Krupp. “Then, I continued chemo during the first few months of COVID when the world was reeling. I had a birthday at that time, and I remember my son came over and we had to stay outside with masks on due to my low counts.”
Treatments ended in July 2020, and Dr. Krupp opted for breast reconstruction, however it didn’t go as planned.
“I had a few surgeries. I had reconstruction in January 2021, and I experienced some complications, so I had my implants removed a little over a month later and then I just chose to remain flat.”
Now cancer free, she and her daughter competed in a Tough Mudder earlier this year. It’s an endurance event in which participants run obstacle courses that are 10 to 12 miles long. But overcoming obstacles is what Dr. Krupp does well.
“It was my fourth Tough Mudder, but the first one since I had cancer. I just am not letting anything stop me from being myself, so I’m as active now as I was pre-cancer,” Dr. Krupp said. “I’m just living my life the way that I’ve been.”
To help her to remember to celebrate each day, Dr. Krupp now sports a large, elaborate tattoo that extends from the bottom of her neck to the middle of her rib cage and from one shoulder to the other. It’s a beautiful garden full of her favorite flowers that covers the area where her breasts once were. The design is dense with a peony, clematis, hydrangea, echinacea, daisy and a monarch butterfly near her collar bone. At the top of the tattoo are Scrabble tiles – a nod to her favorite game - that read “Living My Life” which is exactly what she is doing.
Dr. Krupp continues to urge her patients and all women to know their own bodies and know their individual risk for developing breast cancer. Take our short Breast Cancer Risk Assessment and talk to your doctor about the results.
