Cancer affects millions of people worldwide, and the diagnosis can be life-changing. Despite the hardships that come with cancer, many survivors find that the experience has also provided an opportunity for personal discovery and growth. Through her own words, this interview shares the inspiring story of Johny 'JJ' King, a community member known for her involvement with popular pizza joint, Nonna Picci.
JJ King is a HER2+ cancer survivor who was diagnosed with stage zero breast cancer in the summer of 2020 amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. JJ's story is not just one of survival, but also of learning to slow down and be present in the moment. Through her journey, JJ learned to shift her priorities back to what truly matters, let go of toxic relationships breeding negativity in her life, and find a deep-rooted peace even in the midst of adversity.
Her story is a powerful reminder that, despite the challenges, it is possible to emerge from cancer healthier and stronger than ever before.
GC: What brought you to Statesboro and how did you get involved in the community?
JK: I moved to Georgia in 2015. I worked on the islands outside of Savannah and met lots of friends and people in the business. They recommended I meet this wild guy named Bob Isaacson, which I did, and he hired me to open a new bar in Statesboro, and 7 years later we did, but through getting involved with Bob, I came to Statesboro to help run Nonna Picci, and then COVID happened, and then cancer happened, and then it all changed.
GC: Tell us a little bit more about that. I can only imagine that getting a diagnosis during COVID must have been so difficult. How did these changes impact your life?
JK: I couldn’t go through cancer and manage a restaurant while also taking care of my kid and my family, so even for the year after COVID, I chose to spend most of my time resting at home.
Being diagnosed with cancer in the midst of COVID was a blessing in disguise for me. It was a struggle because you can’t go to any appointments with anyone and so I had to go through that alone, but I was able to just come back and be around my family. My son was able to do virtual learning for a year so we got to be home together while I was going through the hardest time in my life– and I couldn’t imagine being an 8th grader with my mom going through treatment, so I think it was good for him that we both were able to be home and spend that time together.
GC: Do you want to open up about your diagnosis experience? What type of cancer were you diagnosed with and what was the recovery like for you?
JK: In July 2020, I was diagnosed with cancer. I was told over the phone by my regular doctor, who I love, that I had stage zero cancer. When I was walking in to see the oncologist, I already knew what I wanted to do, but I wanted to hear what the doctor would say. He explained that normally, he would remove the lump and I would just have a lumpectomy. However, he said the problem was that the lump was so large, and my breast was so small, it would leave me completely disfigured. Well, I said I wanted to do a double mastectomy. Just go ahead and get it out. I don’t want to worry over every little bump for the rest of my life because I know I will.
He agreed, and then they originally tried to schedule it for Sept 9th, 2020, my son’s 13th birthday. So we rescheduled the appointment because I wasn’t going to do it on his birthday, and instead, we went to Universal together for one last moment of normality before life completely changed for us all.
And then on September 27th, I had a double mastectomy.
GC: And is this when you were able to transition from ‘diagnosis’ to ‘recovery’?
JK: Well, the doctor told my husband, “She did great, her skin is really good, and I think she’s going to heal wonderfully.”
They put expanders in, which expanders are like little balloons. Then you see a plastic surgeon every week or so, and they inflate the expanders little by little until you have breasts. After that, the surgeon goes in and takes those out and put in the implants. That was the goal all along, and we were on track to have surgery and have the implants put in, but then, I’ll never forget what happened.
I had my initial surgery on a Thursday, and then the following Friday, the surgical oncologist's office called, and I remember I sat in the middle of the living room floor, put the phone on speaker, and the oncologist explained that unfortunately the pathology reports came back, and the cancer was more aggressive than they expected and had spread to my lymph nodes.
“I just want you to be prepared, you’re going to have to go through chemo and radiation.” the doctor said.
Telling you that you have cancer is one thing, but then to feel like you’ve kind of overcome this thing, just to find out there was more to fight? It was like getting hit from behind by a bus.
So on Monday, I met my next oncologist, Dr. Jennifer Yannucci in Savannah, who I love. I couldn’t ask for a better one. And by that very next Friday I had another surgery where they took my expanders out. They put a port in, and the following week I began chemo. I did 6 rounds of hard chemo where I lost my hair, and then after that, I had 30 rounds of radiation, and they lowered my medications from 4 chemo drugs down to 2. After I finished radiation, close to a year after my first diagnosis, I had another surgery, an oophorectomy, and they took everything. This was because of the amount of estrogen and progesterone my body was producing, which my cancer was positive for. You know with cancer, your cells double. Well with my kind of cancer, HER2+, it doubles the double. Which is why I got this tattoo behind my ear. It’s the chemical makeup of Herceptin. It's the drug that saved my life, and the lives of many women.
GC: Thank you for sharing all of that. I know that going through this experience has impacted you across many areas of life. What helped you make sense of it all as you recovered?
JK: You know, I didn't realize it at the time when I was going through it all. But a couple of years ago someone said to me, you literally had an amputation. And I had never considered it like that before. I guess you and I don’t think about it in that way because it’s not an arm or a leg, however, it’s still a piece of you that’s gone. Coming to terms with that really helped me lean into healing and recovering from my losses, both physically and emotionally.
In the midst of this whole journey with cancer, I had to cut ties with my mother. Our relationship had always been kind of unhealthy. It was right before the second chemo treatment; the last day I spoke to my mother, was the day I shaved my head, and it was really, extremely hard. When you go through cancer, or not even necessarily cancer, but anything life-changing like that, you know, even if you don’t have a good relationship with your family, you want those people to be there for you and support you. And even though I know now it was what was best for me, I didn’t have my mother there with me through my recovery. So I kind of just had to tell myself, okay, this is what it is, and push through on my own without that support from her.
I am lucky though, that I did still have strong, supportive women in my life, like my aunt. She was the one who picked me up and encouraged me to get through all of this. She helped me let go of everything with my mother and focus on my own health. Even at the beginning, when I first started treatment, I was so worried. I didn’t want to upset my mom. I was trying to schedule appointments around when was good and convenient for her. I just have always been a people pleaser, my whole life. I was just a yes ma’am, yes sir, make everyone around me happy, kind of kid. But it was that one conversation with my aunt that helped me say, ‘No more. I’m going to now focus on myself.’ And that was hard, especially as someone who is used to taking care of everyone else.
GC: Is this pattern of putting the needs of others before your own something you’ve struggled with since you were young?
JK: I’ve always been the kind of person to just push through and handle the situation on my own. I’m not sure if that’s related to how I was raised, but I’ve just always been that kind of person. And you know, there are so many theories, scientifically and otherwise, about where cancer comes from. There are people who have lung cancer but have never smoked a day in their lives. I don’t know where my cancer came from, it could have been alcohol, or it could have been smoking cigarettes, but I truly personally believe it came about as a result of the stress I faced in my life.
I was anxious 24 hours a day. I allowed negative people to come around that would make my body tense up and my chest hurt, and you know when that happens, it’s your body telling you that this isn’t good for you and to get away, but I would ignore it. So I believe that all of that stress, that negativity, it just built up in my body and manifested as cancer. Our bodies hold on to trauma.
I have spoken to say many other women in these support groups, and they always ask, “Did anyone else live in a stressful environment? Did anyone else survive an abusive relationship? Did you have a lot of trauma as a child?” There are so many people that resonate with this belief that the trauma we carry can lead to cancer.
When I was diagnosed, one of the first things they do is ask if it runs in the family. I personally didn’t know and so they ran a gene test. It was negative. I am negative for every genetic possibility of having breast cancer. They even checked for ovarian cancer, and I was just negative for everything across the board. And it’s weird because we’re told it’s primarily associated with genetics and to check your family history, but it’s a huge misconception.
There are so many other patients that share my same story.
GC: Wow! This really has been a multifaceted journey for you. What has life after recovery looked like? How are you implementing the lessons you’ve learned into your life today?
JK: After starting to feel a little bit healthier, I started working again at Nonna Picci, and traded my general management position for that of Director of Operations, and I am also now a partner. I don’t do the day-to-day anymore, I look over the bigger stuff, and I’m overseeing other projects around town. I have a rental house I am currently renovating.
Cancer was something that forced me to slow down, and I see that as a blessing. Before my diagnosis, I worked a lot, so I missed out on a lot. It’s my biggest regret, working as much as I did thinking that I had to work as hard as I could, as much as I could, to provide and survive. But that’s what I’ve learned through all of this: I don’t.
You don’t get it back. That’s the thing. You don’t get those years back. When I was younger, and my son was younger, I thought if I just worked hard enough, then I would provide him with the life that I didn’t have. And I missed the whole point; I missed so many memories. And yes I was at his school every time they had something because that was a priority, but you know, I wasn’t always home for dinner, and I wasn’t home on the weekends a lot. COVID really taught society to slow down, and cancer really emphasized that lesson for me. I will never put money, a job, or material things in life over my well-being or my family's well-being ever again.
And unfortunately, it sounds like such a simple task but everybody gets up and goes to work, and they will work all day, and then they’ll work overtime, and then you’ll what, take one vacation a year? Two if you’re lucky? We’re prioritizing that (work) over everything. Especially here in the US, we have been fed this idea that success is what kind of car you drive and what kind of house you buy, and it’s not.
GC: So how has that shifted for you? What doe success look like to you now?
JK: Being home for dinner every night. Having conversations with my husband and my son that aren’t rushed. That’s a big one. Appreciating the people that are in my life more. I could be in the middle of something important for work, and I’ll always pick up. Whereas before, you know, I would tell myself, ‘Oh I’ll get back to them. It can’t be that important.’ But it is. And making that time for the people that matter matters.
GC: How has that improved your life and your relationship dynamics, after experiencing this shift in priorities?
JK: I’m peaceful. I lived with anxiety, like most Americans, I think. I was anxious 24 hours a day, running this rat race to keep up and to be successful, and as I said before, I’ve learned through this that my success isn’t rooted in material things. It’s the relationships I have. I’m just so much more peaceful. I don’t have room in my life anymore for anything other than peace. Which is so crazy, you know, because I do, in a literal sense, have so much more time and space in my life that I didn’t have before, but I don't have room for bullshit, you know? I’ve learned to just keep the people that want to be in my life close, and the others, well, I don’t waste my time begging for other people’s attention anymore. I appreciate what I do have, but I’m not chasing anything or anyone to prove my worth anymore.
GC: So being a cancer survivor, you’ve had to learn to take care of yourself in a whole new way?
JK: That was a hard one for me, learning to care for myself. It’s surreal because cancer happened so fast.
My doctor told me about a month ago, “I know you’re only taking a pill, and you’re not going through the chemo anymore, and your hair is growing back, but you’re still on a chemo pill and you need to slow back down.”
This was because I got a little cold, and it about killed me. It’s because of my immune system. Even though I may not look and feel sick in the same way as I did in the midst of it, I am. So I still am having to remind myself to slow down and focus back in on myself, even though I feel good. Because that’s my personality anyways, just put your head down and get it done.
But for me, the hard part was when the cancer is over. Not that the cancer is over, but when all of the active parts like seeing your doctor, and your nurses, and then seeing someone completely new, and getting chemo, and treatment, it’s so crazy. So when you finally get past all of that, and the cancer is controlled, and they just have you on a pill and say, ‘We’ll see you once every other month.’, you finally get to wrap your head around what just happened to you. Because up until that point, you’re just fighting to survive.
After the most intensive part of my treatment ended, that’s when I really got to focus on healing. I just looked back over everything I went through the past 2 and a half years and realized I was on the other side of it.
That’s when it really sets in. When you’re done going through the treatments. Cancer is cancer. And it’s scary, and it’s horrible, but when it’s said and done, that’s when you need to reach out to your support system. That’s when you need therapy. That's when you need loved ones to hold you just a little bit closer.
Looking back now, I'm glad that I went through it and I hate saying that, but it’s true. Cancer is simultaneously both the worst and the best thing that ever happened to me. Now, I’m at a point in my life where there is a before cancer and an after cancer; and that’s just how I look at my life now. Before cancer, you know, my life was full of toxicity, fights, anger, and hard relationships. And now, if it’s not easy, I don’t want it. If it doesn’t bring me joy, I don’t want it. If it doesn’t serve me and my family, I don’t want it. I hate that it took me being in my late thirties and going through cancer to learn that, but thank God I did, because some people don’t.
I will say though, when it was all going on, I thought about cancer 20 times a day. It consumed me and it was all I could think about. But now, I think about it less and less and less. It doesn’t drive my life the way it did for those couple of years. I’m going to live to be 90 and I hope you know that. I’ve said it since I was young, it was one of my life's goals to make it to 90. I have such a good relationship with my grandmother who is also healthy and thriving. I have a long way to go. I have a lot left to do.
GC: Speaking of what’s left for you, how has this entire experience inspired you to move forward after cancer? How has it impacted your work, your community involvement, and your goals and vision for the future?
JK: I just want to keep growing, you know? Growing Nonna Picci, growing my portfolio, growing my family, and watching Statesboro grow. I want to be a part of all of the great things happening in my community. I also want to continue to use my social media platforms, like my TikTok, to continue encouraging and inspiring others on their own journey. And I’m actually better at my job now, if you’d believe it, because I’m not so exhausted all of the time. I have more energy. I’m able to stay on task better, and it’s helped me to prioritize better. I’m not just taking everything on my shoulders and just pushing through. I’m just not as stressed as I used to be. I just focus on what I have to do in the moment. And that’s the key. That’s it. Be here now.
