From 9/11 to Breast and Colorectal Cancer to the PMC: A Survivor’s Story 

Editor’s Note: Kathy Ball-Toncic completed her 162-mile PMC ride on Aug. 2-3. “I cried many tears of joy,” she said afterwards. “A particular highlight was my oncologist Dr. Huffman coming out to cheer me on. That was a great surprise!” 

Nearly 1,300 cyclists will be riding in their first Pan-Mass Challenge® (PMC) this weekend, each with their own story. For Kathy Ball-Toncic, the path to the starting line is one rooted in survival — and began on Sept. 11, 2001.  

Ball-Toncic thought she had faced her worst fears that long-ago morning, running barefoot through glass-filled streets as the Twin Towers collapsed around her.  

The experience prompted her to leave a successful financial services career and reinvent herself as a professional coach and “courage catalyst” — someone devoted to helping individuals and Fortune 500 companies create and embrace change. A breast cancer diagnosis on her 69th birthday in February 2023 was merely another challenge to get through, like the 11 marathons she had run for charity since 9/11.  

But just a year later, came news that even the courage catalyst had a hard time grappling with. Less than two weeks after getting the “all clear” from her breast cancer team, Ball-Toncic learned the results of a recent colonoscopy.  

She had colorectal cancer.  

“I just felt my whole world fall apart,” Ball-Toncic recalls. “I didn’t know what to say. Who would ever think that I’d have another cancer?” 

During a time of great uncertainty, the one thing Ball-Toncic was sure of was her next destination. Confident in the clinical care and warmth she had received during her breast cancer treatment, she returned to the place she thought she had left behind. 

“I was going back to Dana-Farber,” says Ball-Toncic. 

Life-interrupting lump 

A Boston-area native, Ball-Toncic is a self-described “citizen of the world” who spent several years living abroad in Croatia and Italy after college. Eventually she made her way back home and a job in financial services that included regular trips to New York City and Wall Street. 

On Sept. 11, 2001, she was on the ground floor of the North Tower at the World Trade Center readying to go up to a meeting when she heard the loud explosion of what turned out to be a plane crashing into the building. As debris began falling, a colleague recommended Ball-Toncic take off her heels so she could run faster away from the chaos. The suggestion may have saved her life. 

In the aftermath, which included six funerals for friends lost that day, Ball-Toncic reevaluated her priorities. She realized what she liked most about her job was helping people on her teams to grow. 

“Working with an executive coach at that time was transformational for me,” Ball-Toncic says. “One day I looked at her and said, ‘I want to do what you do.’” 

After earning her coaching certification, Ball-Toncic opened her own company. As a way of further giving back she began running marathons for charities, including the Boston Marathon® twice with the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge team. 

“I was inspired by Mary Oliver, who in one of her poems asked, ‘What is it you want to do with your one wild and precious life?’” explains Ball-Toncic. “In coaching, and running, I found it.” 

This contentment was interrupted in 2021, when Ball-Toncic noticed a lesion on her left breast. Doctors at one Boston-area hospital, including an oncologist, spent two years telling her not to worry. Even mammograms, they claimed, showed nothing troublesome. 

“Finally, at the end of a routine skin exam, I asked my dermatologist to take a look at it,” recalls Ball-Toncic. “She said, ‘Oh, we need to biopsy that right away.’” 

Two years, two cancers 

The lump was malignant, and Ball-Toncic turned to the Breast Oncology Program at Dana-Farber. She received a concise diagnosis of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), the earliest (and non-life-threatening) form of breast cancer. Treatment included a partial mastectomy and radiation, and was led by Olga Kantor, MD — who acted as both her surgeon and oncologist.  

“At Dana-Farber, I was struck by every person’s warmth, smile, and willingness to care,” says Ball-Toncic. “Dr. Kantor was wise, brilliant, and compassionate, and made sure I understood everything without talking down to me.” 

Ball-Toncic only missed a few days of work, and by December was feeling strong enough to take a celebratory trip to Antarctica — her seventh continent visited — with her adult son and daughter. She ran, hiked, and swam, but amidst all the fun she knew something was wrong. 

“There was blood in my stool, and I felt like I had to go to the bathroom all the time,” says Ball-Toncic. “It never crossed my mind that it might be cancer, but I vowed to get it checked out when I got home.” 

The result was her first-ever formal colonoscopy — just before her 70th birthday — and her second cancer diagnosis in 12 months. 

“I was in the camp of people who always put off having colonoscopies,” says Ball-Toncic, who had opted for less effective yearly at-home tests instead. “Now I tell everybody to get them. My kids will be getting them at 45 because of me.” 

Ball-Toncic’s second stint as a Dana-Farber patient, this time in the Center for Gastrointestinal Oncology, was led by oncologist Brandon Huffman, MD,  surgeon Jennifer Irani, MD, and radiation oncologist Ritchell van Dams, MD, MHS. The treatment, which included chemotherapy and extensive radiation, was physically draining. Ball-Toncic could not climb a flight of stairs without pausing halfway up to rest. 

“It helped to look at my treatment like a marathon, and attack it in small chunks,” Ball-Toncic explains. Drs. Irani, Huffman, van Dams and the whole team was wonderful, and very supportive.” 

PMC epiphany 

Once declared cancer-free again, in August 2024, Ball-Toncic began physical therapy to regain her strength. She soon realized that her long-distance running days had to be put on hold, but came up with another way to challenge herself athletically while helping others. 

“In the past I had supported friends who rode in the Pan-Mass Challenge for Dana-Farber,” says Ball-Toncic. “If I couldn’t do a marathon, maybe I could do a bike-a-thon.” 

Huffman and her physical therapist both embraced the idea, and Ball-Toncic signed up for the 2025 PMC. She’s been in training ever since, and this coming weekend will climb aboard her bike and begin a 162-mile, two-day trek from Wellesley to Provincetown. She expects to shed more than a few tears along the way — mostly of joy. 

Affirming that there is no clear reason for Ball-Toncic’s two unrelated cancer diagnoses so close together, Huffman is in awe of his patient’s strength. He calls her “Superwoman,” and it’s tough to disagree. 

“Proof of life isn’t just about having a pulse,” Ball-Toncic wrote in a blog about her decision to ride the PMC. “It’s about choosing to live fully — with courage, vulnerability, and the occasional raised hand, especially when it’s trembling.”