More Than Medicine
Breast cancer care has improved significantly over the past several decades, with more advancements on the horizon, but emotional support and community can also have a massive effect on the impact of treatments.
Breast Cancer Awareness Month saw its 41st iteration this month, after first being established in 1985. In the over four decades since that first event, every October has been marked with pink everywhere from clothing racks to football fields in the name of raising money and awareness for the disease itself and the various organizations aimed at supporting patients, survivors and doing research for more effective testing and treatment.
One of the biggest improvements is earlier detection, which has been achieved both through improved imaging from mammograms and ultrasounds, as well as the use of procedures like breast MRIs, which can help to find cancerous cells earlier and before they become invasive, making treatment more effective and improving outcomes.
Both hormone positive and negative breast cancers also have new and improved forms of treatment, creating less risk of recurrence, and those with metastatic breast cancer are experiencing better quality of life and living longer. Immunotherapy and new oral therapies are two treatments that have been decreasing progression and recurrence. Radiation is able to be delivered in shorter periods, and reconstructive surgeries after mastectomies have also seen massive improvements.
“Cancer care is becoming more personalized through things like genetic testing, tumor profiling and targeted therapies,” says Dr. Rachel Levenbach, an oncologist at Regional Cancer Care Associates. “The majority of women who have breast cancer undergo genetic testing. It was more specific prior, but now they've updated the guidelines and really a very broad patient population is able to get genetic testing when they get diagnosed with breast cancer, which can help guide some of our treatments. And then women who have metastatic or advanced breast cancer, we can run specific tumor profiling on these patients, so we know if there's certain agents that they will respond better to, or agents that we may not have given otherwise, but now we know their tumor would respond.”
While many of the advancements in clinical care are deeply important for patient outcomes, the focus on the medical research and new tools for treatment can draw attention away from other elements of cancer care that are also important, like the need for emotional and sometimes even financial support.
In South Jersey, two of the largest and most influential groups working to help patients, survivors and their families are the South Jersey Breast Cancer Coalition (BCC) and the New Jersey chapter of the Susan G. Komen Foundation, both of which are staffed with volunteers and members who are themselves survivors of breast cancer.
The South Jersey BCC helps those going through the disease with education and breast health awareness, as well as advocacy by lobbying insurance companies and local politicians to ensure insurance coverage and removing cancer care monetary caps in the ACA. They also offer financial aid to patients through the Carolyn J. Ochs Memorial Client Assistance Fund, which has awarded $275,000 to applicants since it was created in November 2016.
Two of the BCC’s board members are Anne Bullard and Lori Bussison. Bullard, a Winslow Township resident, was first diagnosed with HER2-positive breast cancer in 2019 after finding a lump under her arm. She managed treatment while maintaining full-time work as much as possible and raising her two children alongside her husband. After six months of chemotherapy followed by surgery and radiation, Bullard has remained in remission for the last six years.
Bullard joined the coalition out of a sense of wanting to give back and help other women and men going through their own breast cancer journeys.
“I saw a lot of people during treatment that didn’t have anyone with them,” she says. “Everybody going through this should have someone going through the journey with them.”
Bullard helps the coalition with outreach, raising awareness and promoting education about breast health and getting screened.
Bussison is a two-time cancer survivor, as she was first diagnosed with ovarian cancer that spread to the lymph nodes when she was just 17 years old.
After nearly 40 years in remission, Bussison found a lump in her left breast in 2012, which turned out to be an invasive ductal Stage 3C cancer triple positive. Her treatment started with chemo before surgery to remove two tumors in the breast and lymph nodes, a total mastectomy, pinpointed radiation, and eventually breast reconstruction and physical therapy.
“I just said, ‘I am going to beat this. I'm going to stay positive. I'm going to do whatever it takes to get myself better. I'm not going to go into that negative space,’” she recalls. “… I had about 27 rounds of radiation. You're there every single day, and I had people who drove me to chemo and brought me home. A cousin of mine made me dinner every Thursday night because that was my chemo night. I never really was by myself. I always had somebody who was with me during chemo, during radiation.”
Bussison has helped by being a model in the coalition’s first annual fashion show, sharing her story, helping to raise money and providing emotional support.
The Susan G. Komen chapter provides similar support, giving patients a chance to connect with survivors and get any financial or emotional support they may need. Sisters Charlyne Emmanuel and Shari Moody, both breast cancer survivors who faced diagnosis and treatment at around the same time, have shared their stories at one of the organization’s walks.
“Public speaking isn't either one of our favorite things to do, so we were really nervous,” Moody says. “… It was something to do to process what's going on and get it out and just be able to talk about it because when everything happened, it happened so fast. I felt like I didn't even have a chance to compose myself. So that was one of the first steps to just be able to go over it and process it for myself, and at the same time help others to know that this is real, that this can happen, this is what it looks like.”
Emmanuel was the first to find a lump, but after her doctors did an ultrasound and found nothing to be worried about at the time, they told her to return in six months. Life got busy and with the doctors not worried, she moved on. When her older sister was diagnosed in 2024 after finding a lump the night before going to a wedding dress fitting, she decided to get checked again, with doctors then discovering cancer.
The sisters went through much of the same treatment, like surgery and radiation, within just weeks or months of each other, with both being diagnosed before the age of 40, the standard age when mammograms begin.
The sisters both highlight the disparities in the treatment of breast cancer in Black women compared to other populations, as Black women have the highest mortality rate for breast cancer of any ethnic or racial group.
“A major part of my story is I wish I asked more questions or was more present within that whole process before I was diagnosed,” Emmanuel says. “I wish I asked my doctor, ‘What are we monitoring? Why do I need to wait six months?’ Because honestly, if I would have known it could turn into cancer, I would have said, ‘Can we take it out now?’
“… It’s not to say don’t trust your doctors, but I think there’s this expert culture where you think, ‘I’m not a doctor. I didn’t go to school for it, so I just trust what they say.’ Get a second opinion, look within that community to ask people about their experiences. You just want to be participating in your care. So [I would recommend] getting to know your body, speaking to others, reaching out to that community, because you just never know."
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Published and copyrighted in South Jersey Magazine, Volume 23, Issue 7 (October 2026).
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