MARBLEHEAD — When Marty Willis discovered a lump in her breast during the summer of 2020, she didn’t know she was about to begin the fight of her life in the middle of a global pandemic.
“I found the lump, but mammograms were closed,” she recalled. “As soon as they opened in September, I went in and had one, and sure enough, I had breast cancer.”
The diagnosis came just as COVID-19 was changing daily life. Willis learned she had HER2-positive breast cancer, one of the fastest-growing forms of the disease.
“If I had gotten this 10 years ago, there was not a cure for it,” she said. The tumor was roughly the size of a golf ball, and the staging was advanced: stage three to four. But thanks to medical advances, she had reason to hope.
Over the next year, Willis underwent chemotherapy, seven weeks of radiation, and a full year of immunotherapy. Remarkably, she continued working throughout her treatment, joining meetings virtually and keeping her diagnosis private.
“In a way, it was a blessing,” she says. “I could hide behind the screen. No one knew. And we didn’t tell anyone because I wasn’t sure of the outcome. I didn’t want my husband to be asked constantly how I was doing.”
Her medical team at Mass General Danvers moved quickly, and after the first round of chemotherapy, doctors couldn’t detect the tumor.
“Even though I was very far along with the staging, the cure rate was about 90%,” Willis explained. “It had very good odds.”
She credits her recovery to both medical care and mindset.
A lifelong exerciser, Willis maintained her daily workouts and drew on mental resilience to get her through.
“I was in good physical shape, and mentally I decided, this is not going to take me down,” she said. “I believe that a lot of mental toughness can go a long way.”
Willis said that the sense of support became especially meaningful during her cancer journey.
Her experience led her to become involved with the Ellie Fund, a Massachusetts nonprofit that supports breast cancer patients and their families. She helped rally more than 100 local businesses to “turn pink,” raising money and awareness for breast cancer.
“I saw there was an opportunity to bring the community together on a positive note,” she said. “So many young women under 40 are getting diagnosed, and they don’t qualify for mammograms unless they have a family history. Awareness is so important.”
Willis and her family also participate each year in the Pan-Mass Challenge, a 200-mile cycling fundraiser for cancer research.
“My husband has done it for 10 years. I’ve done it for five,” she says. “We have a small team called Brut Force, named after our French bulldog. The whole family rides.”
Willis’ journey took an unexpected turn when she met Christine Handy, author of the bestselling novel “Walk Beside Me” and producer of the award-winning film “Hello Beautiful.” The two women share the same type of breast cancer, though their diagnoses are separated by more than a decade.
“When I first met Christine, I clicked with her because she had the exact same breast cancer as I had — HER2,” Willis says. The contrast between their treatments underscores how far medicine has come. Handy endured 28 rounds of an aggressive chemotherapy regimen, losing her hair and facing severe complications. Willis’ treatment, while challenging, was shorter and more targeted.
“The difference in the treatments that she had and what I had was like night and day,” Willis said.
In a twist of fate, the Willis family home became one of the main filming locations for “Hello Beautiful.” Watching actors portray emotionally intense scenes in her own house was “a little weird,” she admitted with a laugh. She said, “At one point, my husband nudged me and said, ‘He’s drinking from my favorite coffee cup.’”
Handy said the movie’s location director introduced the production team to the house, and “we got very lucky that they had agreed to let us rent the house because had we not had that caliber of house, our film would have looked not as prestigious and not as high budget as we really needed it to look.”
Handy said the intention of “Hello Beautiful” is to inspire hope.
“When I was going through breast cancer myself, and I turned to movies and media, I felt more fear. And although this is the realistic story of what I went through, which was very, very difficult, it still ends in hope, and that for me is the intention to show that hope,” she said.
Handy said that “hope is a muscle; we just have to use it.”
“When I was diagnosed, I really was emotionally paralyzed, and I focused on fear. And the only thing that did for me was keep me more fearful, and so I would encourage people to focus on hope, and then you’ll become more hopeful,” she added.
Today, Willis celebrates her five-year cancer-free milestone, a significant marker that dramatically lowers the chance of recurrence.
She continues to advocate for early detection and community support.
“I think the most important thing is for young women to be aware,” she says. “It’s not just older women who get breast cancer. I was in that chemo room with young moms FaceTiming their kids. It’s harder for them.”
Looking back, Willis’s story is one of resilience, gratitude, and purpose.
“I had a good outcome. Not everyone does,” she said. “That’s why awareness matters.”