When the NFL season officially kicks off next week, veteran reporter Erin Andrews will be on hand to cover Thursday Night Football for FOX Sports. Just last year, Andrews revealed that she had privately battled cervical cancer while fulfilling her responsibilities as a sportscaster, reports InStyle.

Diagnosed in 2016, Andrews received the news following an annual checkup with her gynecologist. She had surgery 17 days later and 48 hours after her surgery, Andrews was on a plane to Wisconsin to report on a Green Bay Packers game that weekend, according to PEOPLE.

“I was in the middle of football season at that point, and I wasn’t about to miss a game,” Andrews told InStyle in March. “Being on my feet for about seven hours at a time was very hard, physically.”

She continued, “But what was even harder was that, because I work with a bunch of men, I didn’t want to act like I was sick. I didn’t want it to seem like I was in pain or that I couldn’t do my job well. Mentally, it was draining.”

Her doctors’ visits were planned around her work schedule (including her gig as cohost of Dancing with the Stars) so her colleagues wouldn’t suspect anything was the matter. Andrews’s career was just too important to her.

Andrews had to undergo a second surgery after her first one didn’t work. Then, she finally got the news she wanted to hear: She was cancer-free.

Now, she is dedicating her celebrity and time to raising awareness about ways to reduce mortality from cervical cancer, which claims one woman’s life every two hours.

She recently partnered with the medical technology company Hologic on the “We Can Change This Stat” initiative, which aims to get women tested regularly for cervical cancer.

“I’ve never felt more comfortable saying the word vagina,” Andrews said. “We’re always talking about breast cancer and prostate cancer. Now, it’s time to be comfortable talking about this too.”

Click here to learn more about cervical cancer.

.@ErinAndrews Talks About Not Disclosing #Cancer Diagnosis to Coworkers - The sportscaster didn’t let #cervicalcancer stop her from doing her job. http://ow.ly/CHv130mhAMv #nfl via @cancerhealthmag

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