On Sept. 22, Kelly Leipold was diagnosed with breast cancer; on Sunday, she made that diagnosis public and kicked off a campaign to help others get screened.
“No one ever wants to hear the words,” she wrote in a post on X. “Thank you to KU Med for their wonderful care as I proceed with treatment. Early detection is key! If my story can help one woman get the mammogram she has been unable to obtain (then) it was well worth what I am going through.”
She and her husband, Kansas football coach Lance Leipold, “are offering $50,000 in matching funds to the Masonic Cancer Alliance, the outreach arm of The University of Kansas Cancer Center,” as part of a LaunchKU crowdfunding campaign to help more women have the opportunity to undergo the same sort of screening that she did.
The KU coach spoke publicly for the first time about his wife’s diagnosis, treatment and fundraising efforts as part of “New Day with SSJ” on Sports Radio 810 on Tuesday morning.
“This has been something that she’s wanted to do, and going from there,” he said. “And we appreciate everyone that has reached out, and thoughts and prayers. And we have great faith in the Lord, and we have great faith in the people at KU Med for the services and treatments that are coming.”
He said it had been a long fall for his family. The Leipolds have two adult children, Lindsey and Landon.
“Kelly and I both, we had heard about executive physicals and full physicals and full-day physicals and things like that,” he said, “and we had to decided to go through KU Health and things to do that this fall through our open dates and stuff, and she did hers first, and obviously detection and further testing was happening, and we had the unfortunate news.”
Her mammogram revealed atypical ductal hyperplasia and lobular carcinoma in situ, both conditions that can signal a high risk of breast cancer.
In the weeks since her cancer diagnosis, the Leipolds have been pleased with their experience with the KU Cancer Center, Lance Leipold said, and he noted that as a former nurse Kelly has a good sense of how to navigate the medical world.
“It’s been very good, we’ve been very pleased, and the continual contact and things have been very much to our pleasure,” he said.
It isn’t his first experience with the disease. He lost his mother Sonja to breast cancer in 1998, and said on Tuesday that she had spent 16 years battling it at the University of Wisconsin hospital and received a variety of different treatments.
“I think in some way, shape or form,” Leipold said, “this will have come back to help Kelly, and has many others.”
The Leipolds’ crowdfunding campaign can be found online at https://launchku.org/campaigns/leipold-launchku-project.
