Research and expert care helped Suncera Johnson stay calm, informed, and supported through breast cancer—an experience she knows isn’t universal
If her son Khaleel hadn’t tragically been murdered, Suncera Johnson might not have been able to afford the care that saved her life. But a few years after that tragedy, Suncera received a legal settlement connected to his death—right around the time a close friend of hers was diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS).
That made her realize she needed to schedule a long-overdue mammogram. Around the same time, she began noticing a strange discharge from one of her nipples. She took the first appointment available.
At the imaging center near her home in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, she didn’t need anyone to tell her what she was looking at.
“I could see from the regular mammogram that it was cancer,” she said. “I saw the white spot.”
The technician suggested it might be a benign calcification, which is common in women with large breasts. But Suncera had seen too many mammograms from friends who’d been diagnosed with breast cancer to believe this could be something else. A 3D ultrasound followed by a biopsy confirmed it.
What came next made one thing clear—Suncera wouldn’t be able to get the care she needed close to home. The doctor turned to her and said: “You’re going to need surgery. However, our surgeon just retired.”
Suncera received her official diagnosis through a medical records app while she was on a flight to her daughter’s house in Florida to pick up Khaleel’s youngest son, who spends a lot of time with her in South Carolina. Suncera had both DCIS and early-stage invasive ductal carcinoma. The doctor in South Carolina didn’t follow up for another three days.
But by that point, she had already used her settlement check to purchase health insurance—something she rushed to do as soon as the symptoms began. That gave her the power to decide who to trust with her care.
“I knew I wanted to go to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK). As soon as I landed, I called and made an appointment with them,” she said.
That phone call marked a turning point. At MSK, Suncera was met with a level of care and guidance she knew friends at home hadn’t received.
At her very first appointment, Suncera’s breast surgeon sat with her for a full hour, walking her through every detail of her diagnosis. She explained each test result, every treatment option available for her type of cancer, and what to expect throughout each stage of treatment. The doctor also gave her printed diagrams and worksheets and uploaded detailed notes to her medical chart, which Suncera could access through an app. Having that conversation and information at her fingertips made it easier to take everything in and make informed decisions about the next steps.
Suncera’s treatment began this past March with a lumpectomy, followed 12 days later by a breast reduction. After surgery, her care team ordered an Oncotype DX test. She was grateful that the results showed chemotherapy wouldn’t be necessary. Suncera’s mom had gone through that during the first of her two breast cancer diagnoses more than 20 years prior, and Suncera remembered it making her sick and weak.
In addition, her doctor recommended genetic testing because Suncera’s mother and aunt both died from breast cancer, a mere 30 days apart. She was fully prepared to have a mastectomy if she inherited a genetic mutation linked to breast cancer, but was ultimately cleared.
Still, she wasn’t sure about whether to follow her doctor’s recommendation to get radiation, the standard-of-care treatment following lumpectomy for early-stage breast cancer. She felt confident that the surgeries had removed the cancer and wanted to move straight to hormone therapy.
Her oncologist explained that if surgery had missed even a single cancer cell, it could lead to metastatic breast cancer. Research, her doctor explained, showed that radiation could help reduce that risk.
“I feel like my son is looking out for me and that I have the dream team because every step of the way, they explained the pros and cons,” Suncera said. “I love that they respected my right to choose.”
Suncera ultimately decided to move forward with her doctor’s recommendation and underwent 16 rounds of radiation before starting hormone therapy. She felt confident in the decision, knowing exactly how the treatment would reduce her risk of recurrence and fit into her overall plan.
“And in conjunction with my doctor, it was research that put forth the compelling case about why I should have radiation,” Suncera said.
The same couldn’t be said for another breast cancer patient Suncera met, though. She had been diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer, which is one of the disease’s most aggressive forms.
“She told me she was starting radiation in a week, but didn’t even know what triple-negative meant,” she said.
Unfortunately, that was just one of many disparities she noticed between her experience and that of other breast cancer patients. She recalled that a friend with triple-negative breast cancer had to make endless calls to get appointments for care, creating additional stress during an already difficult time, whereas Suncera’s care team handled everything seamlessly.
Another friend with DCIS, who lived in North Carolina, had to go through the headache of working with her insurance company to get a post-surgery recovery bra. Suncera, however, was given several of the bras she needed right at MSK. Her friend also ended up with complications after her surgeon failed to give her drainage bulbs following surgery. Her friend later developed lymphedema and now needs a compression machine to bring down the swelling.
“I had to stop talking to her about my care because I felt so bad for her,” Suncera said. “It’s just insane—I can see the differences between her care and mine, but there should be just one standard of care for everybody.”
Suncera also had a rock-solid support system that included a “girl gang” and a couple of guy friends she turned to for help throughout her treatment. Her friends practically fought over who got to host Suncera at their homes in New York and New Jersey so she could be close to MSK for her treatments. They also accompanied her to surgery, helped her recover after procedures, and arranged deliveries of her favorite meals and flowers.
“They were all so supportive and very helpful. I learned that I’m so deeply, incredibly loved,” Suncera said.
Now, Suncera is entering the next phase of her breast cancer journey and will take hormone therapy (anastrozole) to reduce her risk of recurrence for the next three to five years. She’s also working on coming to grips with the experience.
“I think I have survivor’s remorse—like a kind of guilt because other people suffer with so much, and my experience has been… I don’t want to say easy, but it was the best-case scenario,” she said.
The experience has reshaped how she thinks about something she used to say to her son every morning. Back when her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, Suncera would walk Khaleel to elementary school and tell him he had one daily assignment: “Find a cure for cancer.” The phrase became one they regularly referenced well into his adult years. Eerily, a year before his death, he had a premonition that she had cancer and wasn’t telling him. He made her promise to take her “vitamins.” Today she sees that as confirmation to take the anastrozole prescribed for her as if it were her daily vitamin.
“I told him to find a cure for cancer, and in his own way, he did,” she said. “If he hadn’t died the way he died, I wouldn’t have gotten the lawsuit money that provided me with the funds for a top-tier insurance plan.”
Suncera is painfully aware that not everyone has access to the kind of care she received, though. It has made her passionate about raising awareness about gaps in care and deeply supportive of the kind of research BCRF funds to understand and address the disparities that Black women with breast cancer face.
More broadly, Suncera credits research for helping her stay calm after her diagnosis and make informed decisions about her care—something she hopes all women will have access to in the future.
“It was comforting to me when I went online, and I could see the research,” she said. “Research educates people. It saves lives.”
Read more stories from BCRF’s Research Is the Reason storytelling initiative here.
