Kristina Coccoluto’s Story

How has breast cancer affected your life?

Breast cancer has been part of Kristina Coccoluto’s life for as long as she can remember.

“I was introduced to the word cancer when I was seven,” Kristina says.

Her aunt was diagnosed first. Then, when Kristina was 10, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. As she grew up watching women in her family face the disease, Kristina began to feel that breast cancer might always be part of her story too.

Her aunt later passed away from breast cancer in 2005. Seven months after that, Kristina was diagnosed with melanoma. That diagnosis became a red flag and raised a new question for her family: could there be a hereditary link?

At 25, Kristina learned she carried the BRCA mutation.

For Kristina, that meant an 87% lifetime risk of breast cancer and a 60% risk of ovarian cancer.

That knowledge changed everything.

“It made me decide right away that I needed to change the narrative of that within my own family for future generations,” she says.

What did learning your BRCA status change for you?

Learning she carried the BRCA mutation gave Kristina information she could act on.

She got married at 26 and had her first child, Sienna, at 27. Becoming a mother shifted the way she thought about preventative health. She no longer saw it as something far away or theoretical. It was urgent. It was personal. It was about being here for her children.

When Kristina was 29, while going through routine mammograms and MRIs, she found a lump in her breast. The lump was benign, but it confirmed what she already felt inside: it was time to move forward with a preventative double mastectomy.

At the time, Sienna was only 18 months old.

Kristina knew the surgery would mean giving up the possibility of breastfeeding future children, which was deeply emotional. But she also knew what the women before her had been through.

“I knew my aunt would have given anything to be here,” Kristina says.

That became part of her inner mantra.

“What would Katie do?”

 

How did running help you prepare for surgery?

Before her mastectomy, Kristina wanted to do something physically challenging.

She was under 30, preparing to remove healthy breast tissue, and trying to process what that meant for her body and her future. This was around the time Angelina Jolie had publicly shared her own preventative surgery, but hereditary cancer risk was still not talked about as openly as it is today.

So Kristina started running.

She signed up for the Chicago Marathon and ran for Bright Pink, an organization that supports women at high risk for breast cancer.

“If I can run a marathon, I can confidently remove my breasts,” she remembers thinking.

Running helped Kristina step back into her body. 

 

How did Runway come into your life?

Runway came into Kristina’s life while she was recovering from surgery.

She met Emily Cohen at a Bright Pink chapter meeting, and Emily told her she would benefit from coming to a Runway show. Soon after, Kristina was nominated to be a model.

At the time, life was moving quickly.

Kristina had run a marathon, had surgery, been introduced to Runway, gotten pregnant, and moved — all within one calendar year. Her daughter Amelia was born in January, one year after her surgery.

When Kristina walked in her first Runway show, she was very pregnant. She walked with her mother and her sister Vanessa, who had also tested positive for the BRCA mutation.

For Kristina’s family, that moment was transformative.

“It was the first time we had celebrated and talked about breast cancer as a family,” she says.

Kristina still remembers the energy of that first walk.

“It was something that you could wish you could bottle up and sell to give to other people,” she says.

How did advocacy become part of your story?

“When I stopped making it about me, that’s when I was able to get really clear,” Kristina says.

By sharing her experience, she began helping other people examine their own health differently.

For anyone afraid to pursue genetic testing or learn more about their risk, Kristina encourages them to ask where the fear is coming from — and what the best possible outcome might be.

“If you jump toward the fear and go right through it,” she says, “you start to realize that the best thing that could happen is to know.”

How can people support someone going through surgery or treatment?

Kristina’s advice is simple: be specific.

“Let me know if there’s anything you need” can be hard for someone to answer, especially if they have a hard time receiving help.

Instead, Kristina suggests offering something concrete.

“I’d love to make you dinner next week. What day can I drop it off?”

For Kristina, the more specific and steady the offer, the easier it is to accept support.

 

Why is it meaningful to return for Runway’s 20th Anniversary?

For Kristina, returning for Runway’s 20th Anniversary is about celebrating everything the organization has built and all the families it has surrounded with love and hope.

This year also feels full circle. Kristina will walk with her children, who are now old enough to be part of the Runway experience in a new way.

For Kristina, Runway has always been about what can happen when people come together in the face of something difficult and choose hope anyway.

“Twenty years of celebrating in the face of something that’s really unfortunate,” she says, “but also, what’s the best that could happen?”

We are so excited to cheer on Kristina, her girls, and her son Roman on the Runway stage!