COFFEE COUNTY, Ga. (WALB) — Two breast cancer survivors described their diagnoses and treatment and encouraged community support for Passionately Pink ahead of Passionately Pink Day.

Janet Willoughby and Ariel O’Connor each said early action and community support were important during their treatment.

Help from Passionately Pink

Willoughby said Passionately Pink helped her through her cancer journey.

“You just got to reach out to the ladies. They are here to support you. They’re here for information,” Willoughby said.

She said the organization helped her financially while she was going through a divorce. “Cancer is a burden. A financial burden on lots of families,” she said.

Willoughby’s diagnosis and treatment

Willoughby said she was diagnosed in September with stage 4, HER2-positive cancer. She said 17 lymph nodes under her underarm were involved. She said she found a knot under her underarm, in a lymph node.

She said her physician called her by phone with the diagnosis. “When the words, you have cancer, you instantly think death, automatic,” Willoughby said.

Willoughby said she had 17 chemotherapy treatments and 43 radiation treatments and worked the entire time.

She said she is cancer free. She said she still struggles with the diagnosis because she had stage 4 cancer, and she goes in every three months to be checked.

“Keep the hope, keep staying focused, stay busy, dress like you do every day,” Willoughby said.

Willoughby said she recommends that people of any age do self-exams. “Early detection, just remember early detection is a lot easier,” she said.

“If you get diagnosed, you know, keep the faith, stand strong. It’s not a dead sentence. It’s just a different fight that you have,” Willoughby said.

She also said, “There’s one in every eight women that get diagnosed with breast cancer.”

O’Connor’s diagnosis and treatment

O’Connor, 35, said she was 33 when she was diagnosed. She said her initial diagnosis was ductal carcinoma.

She said she chose a bilateral mastectomy over a lumpectomy after doing research and talking to other people who had lumpectomies. O’Connor said the choice gave her less of a chance of recurrence.

“It was never about what my breast looked like after,” O’Connor said.

She said tissue from the surgery was sent to pathology, which resulted in a second diagnosis of HER2 positive, ER/PR negative. O’Connor said she had a biopsy on three sites, five samples each.

“Had I not done the bilateral mastectomy with pathology, I wouldn’t have known about the HER2,” O’Connor said.

O’Connor said her daughter was 10 months old at the time. She said her family had moved to Texas, 1,000 miles away, and had no friends or family there.

She said she chose to have a port placed because she did not want to “blow my veins.” O’Connor said the procedure is done under anesthesia and is “somewhat painful.” She said she does not regret having the port placed.

Community support

O’Connor said seeing pink ribbons and flags in Coffee County, Ga., on her way to work is “very emotional.”

She said she has seen cars at the Pink House and text messages and social media messages asking how to get T-shirts.

O’Connor described the organization as “a local organization that truly is selflessly serving, 12 months out of the year, 7 days a week, to ease the burden.” She said the support is for families as well as for the person with cancer.

“Showing up real, raw, and honest in the middle of it can hopefully urge and, you know, put that little spark in someone’s ear,” O’Connor said.

She said she is still healing and processing the journey.

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