Living With Metastatic Breast Cancer: Kelly Crump’s Approach, Advocacy and SI Swimsuit Journey

The breast cancer ‘thriver’ has become a source of education and inspiration for patients over the past seven years.

Kelly Crump was photographed by Yu Tsai in the Dominican Republic. / Yu Tsai/Sports Illustrate

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. According to the National Breast Cancer Foundation, one in eight women will develop breast cancer in their lifetimes. Aside from skin cancer, breast cancer is the most common skin cancer among women. For more information and ways to support, click here.

Almost exactly seven years ago, Kelly Crump received her initial cancer diagnosis. It was a primary diagnosis, which put simply, means that the cancer had yet to spread to other areas of the body. It was “contained within the breast,” she explains to SI Swimsuit.

At the time, she saw a fight ahead of her: hair loss and six rounds of chemotherapy among other things. But she thought, “once I get through with that, I’m just gonna move on. I’m gonna move on [with] life.”

Within six months, Crump was diagnosed with a “reoccurrence,” or a return of the cancer. At that point, she was instructed to undergo a double mastectomy. She opted for implant reconstruction, then again told herself, “I’ll do some more chemotherapy, and then I’ll get on with my life.”

In 2019, the diagnosis changed. She was told she had metastatic breast cancer, meaning the cancer had “spread to distant areas of the body.” Particularly, it had migrated to her lungs and her bones.

When COVID-19 took hold of the world, Crump decided she had to take action. The combination of a terminal disease and the global pandemic “made me realize I wanted to do so much more in life,” she says.

So she started talking about her diagnosis online. Slowly, she built a platform that educates others on the realities of living with a terminal illness. Crump quickly realized that this everyday content, or the “ins and outs” of her daily life, really “helps people.” It helps those dealing with their own diagnoses, and it also helps the family and friends of cancer patients understand “how to support” their loved one.

“I never would have thought I would be sharing my life online,” Crump reveals, “but I do it now because if it can help one person, if it can change someone’s mind, if it can help support someone whose mother is going through it, or grandmother, or friend,” then it’s worthwhile. “That’s what keeps me going.”

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Three pieces of advice

If you ask Crump, there are three pieces of advice that she hopes all women (no matter their age) will hear and heed.

No. 1: Start preventative measures early—and stay consistent with them

There is a common misconception among the general populartion, Crump says, that breast cancer only occurs in older women.

In part, the general age guideline for starting preventative measures is to blame. According to the Society of Breast Imaging, women should begin getting yearly mammograms at the age of 40. Crump was a seemingly healthy 38-year-old when she found the lump in her breast. Going by general guidelines, she wasn’t even considered old enough yet to need an annual evaluation. “I had no idea that I should be checking myself,” she tells us.

The reality is that diagnoses can occur much earlier—and it’s important to be proactive in self-evaluating and consultations with doctors, too. “Don’t be scared. Don’t say, ‘Oh gosh, I don’t want to think about it, I don’t want to get cancer,” she urges. “Be educated and be empowered. So that you can take charge of your health and be aware of your health.”

No. 2: Know your body

Over the years, Crump has noticed an interesting dichotomy. “So many of us can probably talk about how many fine lines we have on our face. Or freckles or cellulite or stretch marks—we can point them out. We know them, and we know where they are on our body,” she remarks. But if she says “tell me about your breasts,” the directive is usually met with silence.

It’s a question she’s taken to asking women over the years. Over the phone, Crump laughs as she explains her latest tactic for encouraging women to perform self-exams. But it is the inherent humor in the line of questioning that makes it an effective tactic. It’s the means by which she helps women to a better understanding of their own bodies.

If you familiarize yourself with your own body, “if you know your normal,” Crump says, “then if one day there's something that looks or feels abnormal ... you can have it looked at.”

No. 3: If you know something is wrong, don’t wait

“We all have intuition,” she says. When it comes to abnormalities in your body, you should trust it. “If you know something’s wrong with you, don’t let someone else tell you that there’s nothing wrong.”

In the lead-up to her own diagnosis, she felt off. But doctors told her she was “too young” for breast cancer. Crump “[kept] fighting” and ultimately received her initial diagnosis.

“The only person who can fight for you is you,” she remarks, “So don’t take no for an answer.”

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SI Swimsuit journey

In 2022, Crump submitted herself to Swim Search, the brand’s annual open-casting call. She had grown up reading the issue, admiring the women who posed for the pages and hoping her opportunity to follow in their footsteps might come one day. But when it did, it ended up being so much more than just a spot within the pages of the magazine.

During her fitting for the photo shoot in the Dominican Republic, Crump chose swimwear that she liked—suits that happened to put her scars on display. At that point, editor in chief MJ Day had an idea. “She said, ‘It would be very empowering for others [to show your scars],’” the North Carolina native recalls. So, in the hopes of showing others that scars “[don’t] have to define you,” she did just that.

Kelly Crump was photographed by Yu Tsai in Dominican Republic. Swimsuit by HAUS OF PINKLEMONAID. / Yu Tsai/Sports Illustrate

Crump’s SI Swimsuit photos fit rather seamlessly into her existing social media presence. On Instagram, she is dedicated to putting the realities of her life with metastatic breast cancer on display. On the pages of SI Swimsuit, she did just the same, unabashedly showing her scars to the world.

Living with metastatic cancer

When her health started to decline, Crump learned a valuable lesson. She realized she was “taking [her body’s abilities] for granted.” Most of the time, “we’re so hung up on what our body’s not doing or what our body doesn’t look like,” she explains, that we forget what it is doing. In the aftermath of her diagnosis, she started “thanking” her body, rather than “critiquing” it.

That mindset shift, she says, is paramount in the fight against cancer. When undergoing treatment and surgeries, “you need to be in a good place” both mentally and physically. That includes shifting away from the idea that your body “betrayed” you, and acknowledging the ways in which it’s serving you.

Those sorts of mental shifts are at the crux of her work with breast cancer awareness charity CoppaFeel!. Back in 2021, Crump went on her first week-long hiking trip with the organization. Surrounded by breast cancer patients, survivors and even friends and family of those patients and survivors, she hiked for a week in Scotland.

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Over the past few years, she’s done five treks more in locations all over the world, and has established a consistent role for herself in the groups. “I became this person that would stay at the back and just try to get people out of their own heads,” she explains. Now, she joins the hikes as “team support.” She is there to “motivate, inspire” and help her fellow hikers “understand how powerful they are.” It’s in this role that Crump has found her purpose. “Helping other people and seeing them succeed and be empowered to be educated is what makes me get up every day,” she says.

With a breast cancer charity half marathon race slated for this month, Crump has running on her mind. She acknowledges that there will come a time when she won’t be able to run 13.1 miles. There will come a time when she won’t be able to run one mile. “At some point I’m not going to be able to continue running. There will be a time—whether [due to] cancer or something else—there will be a time where I have to stop,” she remarks. Her response to that reality is simple: “Do it while you can. Don’t take it for granted.”