“Cancer didn’t ruin me. It made me more me.”

When Laura Krudo turned 40, she did what many women do: she asked her doctor for a mammogram.

Her OB told her she didn’t need one until 50.

“That response was absolutely unacceptable to me,” she remembers.

It wasn’t just a hunch. It was history.

Laura’s grandmother had died of breast cancer at an early age, and that legacy had always lived just beneath the surface. She didn’t have a lump. No pain. Just an unshakable instinct: something wasn’t right.

So she found a new doctor.

And she got the mammogram.

That decision may have saved her life.

What followed was a storm of scans: MRIs, ultrasounds, aspiration biopsies. Everything came back BRCA-negative, but the concern lingered. Her left breast had extremely dense tissue—difficult to interpret and easy to overlook.

Eventually, a radiologist recommended a lumpectomy.

She didn’t hesitate.

On August 1, 2022, Laura got the call.

She was at work. Her doctor’s voice was soft. Apologetic.

“I’m sorry,” he said, more than once.

She didn’t cry. She froze.

Then she ran—five blocks in the Florida heat, breathless, heart pounding. She reached his office and burst in, still sweating.

“The very first thing out of my mouth was, ‘Am I going to die?’”

He said no.

And just like that, Laura’s life split in two: before the call, and after it.

Her official diagnosis was Stage 1A: ER+, PR+, HER2-.

She chose a double mastectomy.

Started Tamoxifen.

Endured seven surgeries.

And then came the grief.

“I went through all five stages,” she says. “In fact, I still do. I suffer from survivor’s guilt.”

Therapy didn’t work. Journaling did.

“I poured myself into my journal. I’ve always been an open book, but writing helped me sort through what I couldn’t say out loud.”

She turned to dry flower art—something calming she could do with her hands. On anxious days, she danced around the house to Pandora, just to feel alive again.

At home, healing came through small, sacred things. Her two very spunky chihuahuas never left her side.

“They’re small, loud, and full of love. Just like me,” she laughs.

And then there was her husband—her anchor.

“My husband was the sole thing that kept me going. When I got home after that call, he was waiting with a hug. We were heartbroken. But we were in it together.”

In many ways, cancer made Laura stronger.

In others, softer.

She eats better now.

Moves more.

Says no to what doesn’t serve her.

Says yes to things that once terrified her.

“I’ve always been deathly afraid of flying,” she says. “But after cancer, being afraid of flying seemed trivial.”

This fall, she and her husband will take their third trip to London.

Support groups weren’t always a fit.

Many of the women Laura met were in later stages of treatment. She often felt dismissed—like her story didn’t belong.

Then she found BCFCF.

“I came across Ashley on Facebook,” she says. “And it just clicked. It was emotional support, but more than that. It was community. It was connection. Seeing all the fundraisers, the survivor stories—it reminded me that we’re not alone.”

Now, Laura is ready to give back.

She’s passionate about mentoring other survivors, speaking at events, and helping newly diagnosed women navigate what she’s already walked through.

If she could go back to the woman she was on diagnosis day, running through the heat?

She’d say:

“You’re not going to die.”

If you ask her what breast cancer taught her?

She doesn’t hesitate.

“Cancer didn’t ruin me,” she says.

“It made me a better version of myself.”