Jennifer Kinkade: Looking for the Silver Linings After Breast Cancer

— By Megan Brown, ABCD Marketing Manager

May 26, 2026

When Jennifer Kinkade, who goes by Jenn, moved from Florida to Wisconsin with her husband in the summer of 2022, she was beginning a new chapter.

An occupational therapist, Jenn had accepted a full-time faculty position at a university in Milwaukee. Alongside teaching, she also runs a private practice that focuses on continuing education for therapists.

“I love it here and all things Milwaukee,” Jenn says.

Despite the move, Jenn stayed diligent about going for her routine checkups and appointments. But in February 2024, Jenn went in for her yearly mammogram and received a call back the next day for additional imaging. “I had been called back before,” she explains. “I had been told I have dense breast tissue, and I really wasn’t that concerned at the time.”

An ultrasound and biopsy followed, and by the end of the same week, Jenn learned she had an aggressive form of breast cancer with lymph node involvement. Before she knew it, she was starting chemotherapy.

“It was all very fast. You’re given so much information in such a short period of time,” Jenn says. “Then I had to think about if I wanted reconstruction or not and there’s a whole myriad of options for that.”

Holding Onto Positivity

To cope, Jenn leaned into practicality. “I almost thought of myself as one of my own clients,” she says. “Now we do this, and now we do this. I got very pragmatic.”

After chemotherapy, Jenn underwent a bilateral mastectomy in August 2024. Along the way, she faced a series of complications that required multiple hospitalizations. “It was a bumpy road, but I was able to remain positive,” she says.

Throughout treatment, Jenn found comfort in small things that grounded her, including a crocheted lemon with a message that read: “I might be a tiny lemon, but I believe in you. Go do your thing.”

Jenn brought the lemon to every infusion appointment and placed it on her infusion pump. She continued to look for signs of hope and positivity during some of the hardest moments of treatment. At one point, after getting approval from her care team, Jenn and her husband tried taking a short trip to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Instead, complications from an infection landed her in a Michigan hospital where she needed surgery to remove her port.

Jenn was wearing a shirt covered in lemons that day. “When I got taken to the OR, all of the nurses were wearing head coverings with lemons on them,” she says. “I even asked them to take a picture with me.”

Moments like that stayed with her. “For me, I chose to believe that those were my signs that everything was going to be okay.”

Turning to ABCD for Support

Jenn first learned about ABCD: After Breast Cancer Diagnosis through a colleague, Jody, an ABCD Mentor.

“Jody loves ABCD and told me about it right off the bat after my diagnosis,” Jenn says. “At that point, I wasn’t ready because I was still processing and everything was raw.”

By the fall of 2024, Jenn felt ready. She reached out to ABCD and was matched with a Mentor named Alicia. “I was really well matched by ABCD with somebody who had been through a similar experience, and she was able to answer my questions,” Jenn explains. “We had amazing conversations.”

What Jenn really loved is that the support ABCD offered was anything she needed it to be. “If I wanted to speak more regularly, my Mentor said she was available for that.”

For Jenn, simply knowing someone was there for her to connect with if she needed it was more than enough. “There was no pressure. It wasn’t like, okay, you have to meet with this person once a week whether you have something to talk about or not. It was whatever you needed from it.”

Jenn felt especially grateful for her ABCD Mentor because she was still new to Wisconsin. She also had Jody to rely on at work. “It was almost like I had a personal friend who was also trained as an ABCD Mentor,” Jenn says of Jody. “That was kind of a unique situation, and she was also a big support.”

In addition to ABCD’s peer support, Jenn receives support from a behavioral health counselor who specializes in survivorship care. “I think having a well-rounded support system is really important,” she says.

Now, Jenn plans to attend an upcoming ABCD New Mentor Training and become a Mentor herself.

“I am so excited to be able to support someone the way that people supported me and to give back like that,” she says. “I think it’s so important.”

Embracing New Goals

Today, Jenn continues moving forward while embracing new goals. She recently joined Team Phoenix, an Aurora Health Care program that trains female cancer survivors for a triathlon. At the end of July 2026, one year after her reconstruction surgery, Jenn will complete the triathlon.

The experience feels especially meaningful because during treatment, one of Jenn’s infusion nurses was a breast cancer survivor participating in Team Phoenix. Jenn attended the triathlon to cheer her on and even volunteered. “I ended up handing out medals,” Jenn recalls. It will be a full circle moment for Jenn to receive one of her own.

But that wasn’t her only inspiration to take part in Team Phoenix. After her reconstruction surgery, Jenn was referred to cancer physical therapist Leslie Waltke, PT, DPT. Dr. Waltke co-founded Team Phoenix and is an ABCD Board member.

“One of the first things Leslie said to me is, ‘You’re going to join Team Phoenix, right?’” Jenn says with a laugh. “She is so phenomenal and kind.”

Choosing the Silver Linings

For Jenn, all of this is a reminder. “Through the trials of breast cancer, you can still find some silver linings if you’re open to seeing them,” she says. “You just have to be willing to accept and embrace them.”

That perspective doesn’t mean the experience has been easy. “It doesn’t mean I didn’t ever go to a dark place because I did,” Jenn says. “But you can’t live there. You can go visit, but you can’t live there.”

Instead, Jenn continues choosing connection and support. And by making the decision to pursue becoming an ABCD Mentor, she hopes to give those same things to others like her.

Jennifer Kinkade was diagnosed in February 2024 with Stage 2B ER- PR- HER2+ invasive ductal carcinoma with lymph node involvement. Her treatment included chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and a bilateral mastectomy with DIEP flap reconstruction.