The Trucker Newspaper - November 15, 2018

Women to Watch
21
WOMEN IN TRUCKING
CRST team driver Lana Poveda taking breast cancer in stride, eager to get back on road
Dorothy Cox
dlcox@thetrucker.com
Professional truck drivers have one of the
hardest jobs around, and they’re some of the
toughest men and women around.
But even the toughest person needs to lean
on somebody sometime.
That time has come for expedited CRST
team driver Lana Poveda.
She learned early last year that she had
breast cancer, and it seems only fitting
since October was Breast Cancer Awareness
Month that Poveda was selected as
Women In Trucking’s October Member of
the Month.
It’s estimated that about one in eight U.S.
women (or 12.4 percent) will develop invasive
breast cancer over the course of their
lifetime. This year, an estimated 266,120
new cases of invasive breast cancer are expected
to be diagnosed in women in the U.S.,
along with 63,960 new cases of noninvasive
breast cancer.
Poveda said her type of breast cancer was
hard to detect but that fortunately she had
home time coming last February and decided
to have her mammogram done then rather
than wait until this past August, when it was
scheduled.
It turns out if she had waited until August it
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might have been too late. “I was very blessed
I decided to do it [early],” she said. When
discovered, the cancer had reached stage 2
and was in both breasts.
Rather than chemo delivered via needle in
her arm or through a port, she is taking it by
pill for the next five years.
Lana’s husband Claude is the other member
of her CRST team and the love of her
life. She’s learning to lean on him now more
now than ever.
Claude came off the road after she was
diagnosed and has been with her through
"Sign on bonus"
"Paid Orientation"
surgeries and all her doctor’s appointments.
They live in Palm Springs, a desert resort
city in Riverside County, California, and
though she’s eager to get back on the road,
Lana knows it may be awhile.
Seeing the country is Lana’s favorite part
of what she calls her “lifestyle” job.
“I love driving for CRST because I get to
see the whole country and I never see the
same things twice,” she said.
Born in Long Beach, California, Lana was
raised in Lomita, in Los Angeles County, and
lived most of her life in the city of Los Angeles.
Claude was born in France but came
to the U.S. in the ’70s; they met when he
was delivering food to the French restaurant
where she worked.
Some 16 years ago, the two decided on
trucking as a career after traveling to Colorado
for a niece’s wedding and seeing all the
big rigs go sailing by. “We thought, ‘wow,
that might be fun; wonder if we could do
that,’” she said.
Lana has been at CRST for 15 years and
has 1 million miles of accident-free driving.
She would tell any woman considering a
job as a professional truck driver to “go for
it.”
"Sign on bonus"
"Paid Orientation"
“At the end of the day you don’t have to
fit into a certain persona or gender to be a
driver. It’s about loving to drive and being
an inspiration for all that want to enter this
industry.”
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“When I started, there weren’t a lot of
women” driving commercial trucks, she added.
“But now there are so many. That’s really
inspiring to me, especially in my current
situation. It’s great to have other women out
there to talk with, share tips and offer support
and encouragement.”
She said CRST “has been wonderful to us.
They call and ask if I need anything.”
Through WIT and CRST, Lana was invited
to be on WIT’s radio show, which airs from
10 a.m. to noon Central time on Sirius/SM’s
Road Dog Channel 146. On air, she was able
to share her own breast cancer story and
hopes it made women drivers more aware of
the need to get their mammograms.
So now, Lana’s not just an encouragement
to women to join the trucking industry, she’s
an encouragement to women — especially
drivers — to get their yearly mammograms.
“I want to let them know I have it and not
to be afraid” of getting their mammograms,
she said. Having the test done is better than
putting it off and then finding you have a
month to live, she said.
“It’s made me a stronger person; I see
things as more beautiful now than I did before.”
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Courtesy: LANA POVEDA
Throughout her breast cancer ordeal, CRST team driver Lana Poveda has taken a positive
approach. “I thought I might as well go in with a positive attitude,” she said.
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