Diagnosed with breast cancer at 34, Georgia woman is now a two-time survivor and advocate

ATLANTA - When Sonia Ray and her sister and mother get together, they often pray, falling back on a faith that has helped the 47-year-old Clayton County, Georgia, mother of two navigate breast cancer not once, but twice.

The first time, Ray was just 34, married and homeschooling their then 3- and 5-year-old sons.

"And, I went to the doctor because I had a mass in my left breast was hurting," she remembers.  "And, they told me, 'You have no history. You're the perfect picture of health. There's nothing there.'

Ray says she knew something wasn't right.

"So, a couple of weeks later, I went back, and I said, 'I'm not leaving here till I get a mammogram," Ray says.  "Sure enough, I got the mammogram. It was a 5-centimeter mass, and it was very aggressive because the younger you are, the more aggressive it is. So 34-years old, stage 3.

Ray was told her breast cancer was HER2+, a more aggressive subtype that can raise the risk of a recurrence down the road.  

"So choices begin: lumpectomies or double mastectomies, what kind of chemo or radiation," she says.  "All of these things, all of these questions."

After undergoing a lumpectomy, in which, she says, the surgeon was not able to get enough of a safe margin around the cancer, Ray chose to undergo a double mastectomy, surgery to remove the breast tissue on both sides of her chest.

"I did not reconstruct, I didn't care," she says.  "I wanted them off me. I wanted the cancer out. So, I was bald, I was breastless. My husband stood by me. He loved me. He cared for me."

Sonia Ray in the hospital  (Sonia Ray)

The treatment was grueling.

"Yes, there are times when you are so tired that you do want to give up," Ray says.  "But, then I look at the faces of my kids."

She pushed on, until she was told there was no evidence of the cancer.

"So, I made it past a magic 5-year mark," Ray says.  "Once they tell you, you make it past 5 years, you are good!"

But in 2018, doctors found cancer in the lymph nodes in Ray's neck and along her throat.

Dr. Anita Johnson, a breast surgical oncologist with Cancer Treatment Centers of America in Newnan, Georgia, says about 5 to 7% of women with HER2+ cancer have a recurrence at around the 5-year-mark.  

Still, Dr. Johnson says, the treatments options, even for metastatic or more advanced cancer , have changed radically in the last 5 to 10 years.

"Because we have targeted therapy now, the outcomes are much better," Johnson says.  "Recurrences still happen. But, we have several lines of treatment that are effective. And, that's why she's a long-term survivor."

At CTCA, Sonia Ray was eligible to receive a targeted therapy for HER2+ patients.

"And I fought again," she says.  "I did all of the chemo. By this time, there's new treatments, there's new things."

And, along the way, she has become an advocate for others facing breast cancer.

"Here I am, by God's grace, still alive and helping those come in behind me," Sonia Ray smiles.  "That's what it's all about."