"CrossFit saved my life": Breast cancer survivor tells her story
This October 19th marked International Breast Cancer Awareness Day, and breast cancer survivor Conchi Moreno decided to share her story and how sport helped her during this difficult time with the newspaper elmundo.es , hoping to help someone going through the same process.
"If I can help someone and my story can be of use to them, that's already important to me. It wasn't traumatic at all because I knew it was part of the process and my hair would grow back. Plus, I discovered my cowlicks," said Moreno, sporting a wide smile.
The Spanish woman is also a Hatha Yoga teacher. and Restorative Yoga, she said that she herself detected a lump in her left breast in 2020.
"I've always been very self-aware of my body, perhaps because yoga is part of my lifestyle. And it happened suddenly, overnight, one night in May during lockdown."
According to data provided by the Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC), one in eight women suffer from breast cancer.
Moreno emphasized the importance of his cells being trained to fight the disease and that although he was a patient, he was not going to behave like a sick person.
"I wanted to continue my life as a yoga teacher; I didn't see it as the end of anything." It all happened after she and her husband, Tomás, had been following very healthy habits for a year. "We do everything together, and we saw a sign that said CrossFit Courage."
CrossFit came into the Spanish woman's life to make her feel good and strong, since no one ever knows they are going to have cancer, and doing sport beforehand is good for the body, and during the process you have to be careful and adapt it to the new needs without overdoing it.
She also recounts how her coach, Francisco Ruiz, was always looking out for her.
"If you exercise beforehand, you perceive everything differently. You kind of start to imagine it when you're undergoing so many tests. And the first thing I did when I found out was inform Francisco Ruiz, my trainer, who to this day continues to worry about me and ask me questions, because I've lost a lot of lung capacity. There's always someone watching me closely when I'm training."
His doctors always reminded him that he couldn't overdo it with exercise.
Finally, she advised that if they suffer from this disease, they should not stop training, even if it is only once or twice a week, with professionals alongside the doctors, since for her, continuing to train while undergoing chemotherapy was very helpful.
"A person who receives chemotherapy on a Tuesday will feel terrible until Friday. Strength training helps them live, introduced carefully and spaced out over time. It can be combined with walks outdoors so they can enjoy themselves. It's important to maintain open communication with the oncologist, but the fitter the person is before the operation, the better their recovery and subsequent return to normalcy will be."
Leave a comment