Supporting men as they care for loved ones during their breast cancer journey

Breast cancer caregiving was the last thing on John K. Conner’s mind back in 1998. He and his wife, Anita T. Conner, were in the midst of a busy, successful life, where raising two children, career building, and community activities took up every spare minute.

And then came the surgeon’s call.

That’s when Anita Conner, owner of a thriving financial planning and tax firm, learned she had stage 4 metastatic breast cancer. “It really did come as a surprise,” she said. “I was devastated to find out I had this disease and it was in an advanced stage.”

Her husband had no idea what being a caregiver meant. Now, almost two decades after the fateful call, he is a part of his wife’s nonprofit, Praise Is The Cure, founded to educate Black women about breast health and cancer. His role: to help the men who love them handle the toll of being a caregiver.

Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers in women and, if caught early, has a high survival rate. However, Black women are over 40% more likely to die from breast cancer than white women, a percentage that has remained the same for a decade. They also have the lowest five-year relative breast cancer survival rate of any racial or ethnic group. Researchers have determined the reasons go beyond biology and include socioeconomic disparities and racial discrimination that result in delayed access to timely diagnosis and the lack of quality treatment.

But 26 years ago, John Conner knew none of these facts.

“In a period of weeks, I went from not even worrying about anything to — wow — she may not even be here.”

“I’ll never forget that day,” he said of learning his wife had cancer. “Anita had been talking about this lump on her chest, and she had been to several doctors and they said it’s nothing, don’t worry about it. Well, that’s what we wanted to hear. We were going to run with that.”

She decided to have the large lump removed anyway, and the surgeon insisted on a biopsy.

That’s when she learned she had been misdiagnosed for three years: She did indeed have cancer. “I had just celebrated my 10th anniversary in business.”

At first, John Conner looked at it as another of life’s hurdles to jump. “[Our attitude was] ‘We got this,’” he recalled. “We started dating in 10th grade, and by the time she graduated from high school, we were parents.” For Conner, that they were able to raise a child while successfully attending college was proof the couple were strong enough to endure a cancer diagnosis.

What followed was an aggressive fight for survival. Anita Conner had a radical mastectomy and a total hysterectomy, and she received high-dose chemotherapy. Doctors warned John Conner to prepare for her to die.

The experience, he said, taught him three main lessons that he now shares with new male caregivers: that breast cancer can be survived, that each patient needs a good medical team, and “to be supportive in every aspect. And somewhere mixed in all those [lessons], I let them know your life is definitely going to change.”

Every year, about 880 Black women in Philadelphia receive the news that they have breast cancer.

“It was supposed to be one day a year to raise awareness in the community,” recalled Anita Conner. Now, Praise Is The Cure, which Conner launched with her daughter, Kerri Conner Matchett, hosts a weeklong event in October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month. It begins with Praise Sunday and the distribution of information in more than 100 churches across the city and ends with Super Saturday and a pampering party for over 200 survivors.

“...There is somebody that will help you get through this if you put that barrier down.”

John Conner hosts a session on the physical and emotional issues men face when caring for a loved one with breast cancer. “The thing that’s most challenging about caregiving is that you just feel helpless because you watch a loved one’s health deteriorate. And there’s not a damn thing you can do.”

Studies show that male caregivers of women with breast cancer often have high levels of psychological stress, like depression and anxiety, but are unlikely to turn to a support group. However, men want information on what they are going to face, which questions they should ask throughout the cancer journey, and which associated side effects they should be concerned about.

John Conner’s initial optimism was sorely tested with his wife’s treatment regimen. “I didn’t understand the gravity of it,” he said. “It seems like things got worse and worse and worse until finally they were like, ‘She’s got to have this radical process done to survive.’ In a period of weeks, I went from not even worrying about anything to — wow — she may not even be here.”

Anita Conner did survive, but 10 years later her daughter was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer. Matchett, a Howard University business graduate, had followed her mother’s footsteps into accounting and joined her business. Together they were known as the Tax Divas. The outgoing Matchett and the introverted Conner were exceptionally close, and the news devastated Conner. “I was a teenage mom, so we’ve been sisters, mother-daughter, partners,” she said.

John Conner suffered, too. At first, Matchett went into remission, but the cancer returned, first in her lungs, then in her spine. She died in December 2022. “It hit home really hard when Kerri died,” her father said, “not only the prospect breast cancer could take someone you love, but it does.”

» READ MORE: Kerri Conner Matchett, accountant, tireless breast cancer awareness advocate, and ‘boss lady,’ has died at 48

Praise Is The Cure is trying to improve Black women’s breast cancer statistics. While 90% of women in the U.S. survive five years after their breast cancer diagnosis, for Black women, that number plummets to about 83%.

John Conner’s mission is to pull hurting male caregivers out of their isolation and into a brotherhood of understanding. The Conners are planning a series of webinars for 2025, which will be on their website soon.

“You may not want to talk to everybody about it, but there is somebody you can talk to, and there is somebody that will help you get through this if you put that barrier down.”