Inside the Heart of Oncology Care: Sharon Followill’s Journey
Episode Summary
In this deeply personal episode, David Raubach and co-host Heather sit down with Sharon Followill, a woman who has spent the better part of 25 years at the intersection of oncology care and personal loss. Sharon began her career in cancer care at Baptist Hospital in Oklahoma City in January 2000, joining the oncology floor as a ward clerk at age 40. From there she followed four physicians to Cancer Specialists of Oklahoma — working alongside Dr. Choma, Dr. Choan, Dr. Holland, and Greg Parker — before landing at the Oklahoma Proton Center, where she became the first voice most patients ever heard. Her trajectory from ward clerk to intake coordinator is less a career story than a calling, shaped at every turn by her own family’s encounters with cancer.
Sharon’s motivation for entering oncology is rooted in a loss she experienced at 26: her mother was diagnosed with uterine cancer at age 44 and died just three years later at 47. At the time, Sharon was juggling nursing school, three young children, and the informal second-parent role for her 12-year-old brother. She describes her mother’s illness with striking clarity — the initial abdominal pain dismissed by multiple providers, the eventual discovery of a uterine mass by her longtime gynecologist, a year of remission after aggressive chemotherapy and radiation, and then recurrence in the liver. That loss, she says, left her with no older woman to call on for advice — a void she still feels — and planted a fierce belief in the power of early and appropriate screening.
The episode turns to Sharon’s role at the Oklahoma Proton Center, where she led the intake department and served as the first human contact for patients navigating life-altering diagnoses. Colleagues David and Heather recall overhearing her phone calls and marveling at her ability to cut through decision paralysis with compassionate directness — at one point literally telling a prostate cancer patient it was time to “pee or get off the pot.” She credits a phlebotomist colleague with a pivotal early insight: that patients with cancer are going to have bad days, and it is not the job of the care team to take that personally. That lesson, she says, flipped a switch in her thinking that changed not only how she worked but how she lived.
The most emotionally raw thread of the conversation is Sharon’s account of her daughter Jandy’s breast cancer diagnosis, which arrived less than a year after Sharon retired from the Proton Center. What began as a dry, scaly patch of skin beneath Jandy’s left breast — initially presumed to be a dermatological issue, with a mammogram appointment delayed three months — was ultimately confirmed as breast cancer with two distinct pathological findings: one ER/PR positive and one PR negative. Jandy’s treatment has been comprehensive and arduous: surgery involving the removal of 16 to 17 lymph nodes, more than a year of chemotherapy, and proton radiation therapy at the very center where her mother once worked. Sharon describes hanging up the phone after Jandy’s diagnosis and falling to the floor, only to “flip the switch” moments later and begin mobilizing every oncology contact she had.
The episode closes with Sharon sharing the thank-you letter Jandy wrote to her radiation care team — singling out therapists Payton, Katie, Stacy, and Jackie; medical oncologist Dr. Bova; radiation oncologist Dr. Story, who called from his personal cell phone while on vacation to deliver a clear PET scan result; nurse Sarah; and front-desk staff Tessa and Cheryl. Jandy’s letter, read aloud by David, is both a testament to what patient-centered care looks like in practice and a reminder that no member of a care team — from the intake coordinator to the person managing insurance — is invisible to the people they serve. Sharon’s parting words are simple and urgent: get early screenings, because they can make all the difference in how you live the rest of your life.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode
- Early Screening Saves Lives: Sharon’s mother’s uterine cancer went undetected through multiple provider visits before a gynecologist found the mass; Sharon credits inadequate early imaging as a factor in the outcome and closes the episode with a direct call for proactive screening.
- The Intake Coordinator’s Role: As the first point of contact at the Oklahoma Proton Center, Sharon shaped the entire patient experience from the first phone call — helping frightened patients navigate treatment options, cut through misinformation from outside providers, and move past decision paralysis.
- Proton Therapy vs. Conventional Radiation: Sharon fielded frequent calls from patients who had been told by their own doctors that proton therapy was “experimental” or a “fad,” and she worked to counter misinformation by providing written materials, physician consultations, and connections with former patients.
- Active Surveillance in Prostate Cancer: The episode explores why some early-stage prostate cancers are monitored rather than treated immediately — and why patients who contact a proton center have typically already received a recommendation for active intervention.
- Inflammatory Breast Cancer vs. Skin Changes: Jandy’s presenting symptom was a dry, scaly patch of skin beneath the breast rather than a lump, highlighting that breast cancer does not always announce itself in the expected way and that skin changes warrant prompt evaluation.
- ER/PR Positive and PR Negative Pathology: Jandy’s biopsy returned two distinct pathological profiles — one estrogen/progesterone receptor positive and one progesterone receptor negative — illustrating the complexity that can exist within a single breast cancer diagnosis.
- Lymph Node Removal and Mobility: Jandy had 16 to 17 lymph nodes removed during surgery, resulting in a frozen shoulder and limited arm mobility that made her radiation setup physically painful — a side effect Sharon describes as one of the most difficult aspects of the treatment process to witness.
- Chemotherapy Duration: Jandy’s chemotherapy regimen extended beyond a year, from her first infusion in late November through ongoing three-week-cycle infusions continuing into the following March — a duration that underscores just how consuming comprehensive breast cancer treatment can be.
- Caregiver Advice — Let the Patient Lead: Sharon’s most pointed guidance for parents of adult cancer patients is to step back and allow the patient to own their treatment decisions, manage their appointments, and advocate for themselves — while still showing up for every small practical task, from changing bed sheets to feeding the cats.
- Word-of-Mouth as a Treatment Driver: In Oklahoma especially, Sharon found that patients were heavily influenced by friends and family members who had undergone treatment; the Proton Center formalized this by maintaining a list of former patients willing to speak candidly with prospective patients.
- The Compassion Switch: A phlebotomist colleague’s offhand remark — “don’t forget, they have cancer, you don’t” — became a foundational philosophy for Sharon, reframing patient frustration as pain rather than hostility and reshaping how she approached every difficult interaction.
- Kings of Leon Connection: Sharon reveals that the Grammy-winning rock band Kings of Leon — whose members Caleb, Nathan, and Jared Followill share her family name — are her husband’s nephews; her son Christopher has worked with the band since their early twenties, and she fed the road crew gumbo at their first Oklahoma City shows.
Sharon Followill’s story is not a single story. It is the story of a daughter who lost her mother too soon, a caregiver who turned grief into vocation, a colleague who made thousands of frightened people feel less alone on the other end of a phone line, and a mother who sat in the same waiting room chairs her patients once sat in and learned, all over again, what it feels like to need someone. Her final words on this episode — “get early screenings” — are not a clinical reminder. They are a plea from a woman who has seen, from every angle, what happens when cancer is found late versus found early. If this conversation moves you to schedule a mammogram, a PSA test, or any screening you have been putting off, then Sharon Followill has done what she has always done: made sure you leave the conversation better prepared than when you arrived.
Full Transcript
Read Full Transcript
David Raubach: Today’s episode is one that spans generations and emotions. Our guest has spent over 20 years working in oncology, standing beside countless patients and families through some of their most challenging moments. But cancer has also come knocking at her own door more than once. She lost her mother to ovarian cancer, a loss that reshaped her both personally and professionally. And now she’s walking alongside her own daughter who is currently in treatment for breast cancer. Through it all, she has carried the heart of a mother and a daughter. This is a story about what it means to fight cancer from every angle — and why hope, even in the darkest moments, can be the most powerful medicine of all. Sharon, thank you for joining Heather and I today.
David Raubach: You and I worked together a long, long time ago. I guess that was, uh, what, 2010 to 2013? Then I left and went to Knoxville, and then I came back in 2019, and we had the privilege of working together for a number of years. And then Heather, you and Sharon overlapped at the Proton Center for about four years. So let’s start. First question — what were your first thoughts when I walked back through the door in 2019?
Sharon Followill: I was saying, “I know that guy,” and was really happy that you were coming back, because I can remember that you used to come and sit in my office and we would talk, you know. And your role at that time was business analyst — which, as I understood it, meant golfing with the president.
David Raubach: That’s right — analyzes the president’s golf game. But in all seriousness, Sharon, you have had a profound impact on me from a mentorship role, just because of your experience in the field of oncology. And I know you’ve had a similar impact on Heather. So tell us — what got you into oncology?
Sharon Followill: Well, I didn’t actually work in oncology until I moved to Oklahoma about 25 years ago. It was January of 2000. When we moved here from Louisiana, I got a job at Baptist Hospital on the oncology floor — 7 West at the time. I was just a ward clerk, but I got really close to the physicians there. When four of the doctors decided they wanted to go have their own practice, they invited me to come with them. After working at Baptist probably two and a half, three years, I went with them — Cancer Specialists of Oklahoma, with Dr. Choma, Dr. Choan, Dr. Holland, and Greg Parker. I worked with them for about eight or nine years. Then there were a couple of nurses at the Proton Center who said they had a position open they couldn’t seem to fill. I applied, I got the job, and the rest is history.
David Raubach: Tell us about your motivation for getting into oncology. I think you had a personal experience with cancer.
Sharon Followill: I did. My mom, when I was really young — I was probably about 25 or 26 when she was diagnosed with uterine cancer. She had this terrible pain in her abdomen and we’d brought her to different doctors trying to figure out what it was. Nobody knew. Finally she went back to her old gynecologist, who did an exam and said, “You have a big mass in your uterus — that’s what’s causing all your pain.” She had surgery, biopsy confirmed uterine cancer. She went through chemotherapy and radiation — they blasted her with it, it wasn’t like it is today. She went into remission for a year. Then it recurred in her liver. From diagnosis to when she passed was three years. She was 44 at diagnosis and 47 when she died.
David Raubach: You were a mom of three and you were in nursing school at the time?
Sharon Followill: Yes. And my brother was 12 years old when she was diagnosed, so I took care of my brother — essentially a second mom to him. Besides taking care of my own kids, I was trying to do what I could for my mother, which was not enough, but it was all I could do. My brother stayed with us a lot because my mom was sick. My dad did a great job taking care of her, but adding a growing teenage boy to a family where I was already in college with three kids and a husband — it was a financial burden. It’s remarkable that I made it through without hurting someone.
David Raubach: How did your experience with your mom shape the way that you approached your job when you started working at Baptist and then ultimately with the medical oncologists?
Sharon Followill: What I remembered most was compassion. When I moved here, my kids were mostly grown, and I started working with cancer patients at the front desk at Cancer Specialists. One time a patient came in and just ripped me a new one for something I can’t even remember. After he sat down, I was a little teary-eyed. A phlebotomist there told me: “Don’t forget — these guys have cancer. You don’t have cancer.” It was like a switch flipped in my brain. It changed everything I did, not only at work but at home. You learn to put yourself in the patient’s place and understand what they’re feeling. I carried that into my role at the Proton Center — reminding myself that these people had never worked in oncology. Everything was new and overwhelming to them.
David Raubach: I think there’s some patients where there’s so much uncertainty and everything is so overwhelming that they actually need a little bit of decisiveness — almost encouragement. I always thought that you were really good at that — empowering them to make decisions. I can remember one guy called and he couldn’t decide. He was a prostate cancer patient who had gotten all this misinformation from his own doctor that protons was “just experimental” and a “new fad.” What did you end up saying to him?
Sharon Followill: I gave him all the information I could. I mailed him brochures. I invited him to talk to one of our physicians. After five or six attempts, he called me back, and I finally said: “Look, you’re going to have to either pee or get off the pot. You know you have cancer. So now — what do you do? You’ve got to do something about it. Let’s do it.”
David Raubach: What was the hardest part of running the intake department at the Oklahoma Proton Center?
Sharon Followill: The hardest part was trying to help people who were not educated about their treatment options. They had one professional telling them one thing and someone else telling them something completely different. A lot of patients would call and say, “I had a friend who had prostate cancer, they took his prostate out, and now he has to wear incontinence briefs, and I don’t want that.” Word of mouth is a big deal in Oklahoma. People trust their friends and family to share their experience. One great tool we had was connecting prospective patients with former patients who were six months out of treatment and willing to answer any question — anything at all. Patients responded really well to that.
David Raubach: I want to switch gears a little. There are two things I’ve loved to hear you talk about. One is your family reunions in Albian, Oklahoma. Describe the setting for us.
Sharon Followill: When I first married Chris, they were already having family reunions at rented venues — Beaver’s Bend, Dry Creek. I was from Louisiana, where nobody had six or seven kids. I had a total of six cousins on both sides of the family combined. So I was thrilled to show up and meet all of Chris’s cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandmothers — a hundred people on a bad year. Eventually, Chris’s uncle Kenneth donated some land, and the family built a shower house with a women’s side and a men’s side, then individual cabins, then a big pavilion for shared meals. We later bought the five acres behind the property because we ran out of room. Now we reliably have 98 to 150 people, all related, cooking food, playing horseshoes, swimming in Walnut Creek, and fishing. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.
David Raubach: Is there any connection between your family and the band Kings of Leon? They share your last name.
Sharon Followill: Yes. The Kings of Leon — Nathan, Caleb, and the others — are my husband’s brother’s boys. My son Christopher has been working with them since they were all in their early twenties. They grew up coming to stay with us in the summers, pallets on the living room floor, six kids laid out. Nathan, Caleb, and Christopher used to say: “If you get a baseball contract, you take care of us. If we get a rock band, we’ll take care of you.” They actually followed through on that. I’m really proud of it. For their first four or five shows in Oklahoma City, I brought big pots of gumbo and fed the crew. Then the crew grew to 150 people and — I just couldn’t do it anymore.
David Raubach: I want to segue back to this journey you’ve gone on in oncology — as a caretaker for patients, and then for the last year or so as a caretaker for your daughter, Jandy. What was that moment like when you realized she might have cancer?
Sharon Followill: It was horrible. She had a patch of skin underneath her left breast that was just dry and scaly. Her primary care doctor made an appointment for a mammogram and an ultrasound just to be sure. We weren’t worried — she did breast self-exams every time she showered and never skipped it. We thought it was something dermatological. But there was a three-month wait for the appointment, and I wish I had called and said “three months is not acceptable.” Later, Jandy’s oncologist said the same thing. We were filling out forms asking about family history of breast cancer — and there was none. But there was uterine cancer on my mother’s side, which people don’t always connect. By the time the screening was done, the results were not what we hoped.
Sharon Followill: When Jandy called me, I just said, “That’s okay, treatment these days is great. Maybe you just have to have surgery.” I wanted to reassure her. And then we hung up, and I fell on the floor. Because this is my kid. After all these years in oncology, my kid gets cancer. I would have happily taken it on myself. I had seen all of it before. I knew what to expect. She did not.
David Raubach: And what were the next steps? How was the diagnosis confirmed?
Sharon Followill: We got the pathology report from Integris — something that used to be nearly impossible to get directly. Because I knew those people from my years in the field, they gave us the report. We already knew what it was before we saw the medical oncologist. Then Jandy’s insurance directed us to Mercy instead of Integris, which turned out to be great. We went to Dr. Bova. The biopsy showed two pathological findings: one ER/PR positive and one PR negative. I was lost when it came to reading a pathology report for my own child. I’m one of those people who believes you should not go looking things up online — the Google doctor will give you 25 different scenarios every time.
Sharon Followill: When we walked in to see Dr. Bova for the first time, I was ready for bear. I was going to say, “You need to jump on this right now. Let’s go. I don’t want to talk about anything else.” And she did that without me prompting her at all. It was later in the evening, around 6 p.m. She took hours with us and didn’t leave until 7:15. She answered every single question. And Jandy — she has a memory like you wouldn’t believe — she remembered everything. So I sat back and said to myself: you don’t need to do this. Let Jandy do this. She is in control of her healthcare. You’re not the intake coordinator right now. You’re mom.
David Raubach: It seems like Jandy has had the worst-case scenario in terms of everything she’s had to go through. When did you figure that out?
Sharon Followill: It was the first appointment. Dr. Bova said, “You’re going to have to do chemotherapy, surgery, radiation, and possibly more chemo after radiation.” And all of which she’s either gone through or is still going through. She just finished her last proton therapy treatment — the radiation therapists at the Proton Center were stellar in every way. Now she has a chemotherapy infusion once every three weeks until March 26th. She will have been on chemo for more than a year. Her first treatment was the end of November.
Sharon Followill: She had 16 or 17 lymph nodes removed during surgery, and as a result she has a frozen shoulder. Her arm mobility is really limited, and it was hard to hold her arm in position for radiation. But that team helped her every single day. She wrote them such a beautiful thank-you letter. Not only did they make her journey easier — they made it easier for me. You come to the front desk and it’s Tessa and Cheryl. I know them. They know me. I wasn’t worried, because I already trusted that team completely.
David Raubach: Jandy couldn’t come to the graduation today, but she wrote a letter to her team and to everyone at the Proton Center. I’m going to read it. “I finished my radiation treatment last Tuesday and I want to acknowledge my care team at the Proton Center. They were absolutely stellar in every way. I love those precious angels who were my techs — by name: Payton, Katie, Stacy, and Jackie. They went above and beyond in every possible way and I will miss seeing them and yapping with them every day. I’m so grateful for Dr. Story, who called me from his personal cell phone while he was on vacation to tell me my PET scan was all clear. You’re a really tall doll baby and I could squish you. To my absolutely amazing nurse, Sarah — I could also squish you in the same manner. To the ladies at the desk, Tessa and Cheryl — you were light and love every time I walked through the front doors. And Carrie, dealing with the insurance, winking at me and letting me know it will all be okay. Don’t get me wrong, I’m so happy to be done with this course of my treatment. But I will love you all for the rest of my life. Tens across the board. To David and Heather and Devon — you can never truly know what your care and kindness has meant to me and my family. I want to thank all of you for showing up every day and making your patients feel like people.”
Sharon Followill: And that’s what’s important when people come to a healthcare facility — make them feel like they’re a real person. I don’t think we do that enough out there. Not at the Proton Center, but out in the world. I wish that everybody who has to go through something like this would have people in their lives they could count on — people who show up the way real friends are supposed to.
David Raubach: What advice would you have for another mother watching their daughter or son go through cancer treatment?
Sharon Followill: Don’t try to take over. Don’t try to run the show. Let your kid run the show, because they can. Trust that they are going to make the right decisions for themselves. Just support them in whatever decision they make, because it is their life. Not only will it take the weight off you having to make all those decisions, but it helps them take control of their own lives — their treatment, their responsibility. I didn’t have to call Jandy every day and say, “Don’t forget to put your cream on.” Dr. Bova told her what to do, and Jandy said, “Okay.” And that’s how it should work. And never think any task you do for them is too small. If Jandy’s at work and her shoulder is killing her, I’ll go to her apartment and change her sheets, wash her towels, do anything that I know would hurt her arm. Nothing is too small to do for them.
David Raubach: What is next for Sharon Followill? I know Heather and I are trying to talk our work mom into coming back and helping us a little bit at the Proton Center. What else? What are you hoping the next year looks like?
Sharon Followill: I don’t know exactly. When I first retired, I went on trips with my sister, with my best friend from high school — all the things I never had time for. But then after a while it’s just me and Chris, and how clean can you get a little tiny house, you know? I think I’m going to like working again. I would enjoy going back into that field. And looking back — I had almost a gut instinct that it was time to retire, even though I didn’t know why. And then less than a year later, Jandy was diagnosed. I had all that time to be there for her, take her to every appointment, sit with her through every infusion. It’s always remarkable to me how things like that work out.
David Raubach: Thank you so much, Sharon, for taking your time and being willing to talk about your family’s experience — with your mom and then with Jandy. There’s not many people like you. And there’s not many people who could handle that job the way that you handled it — all of those patients calling into the Proton Center, and you helping them navigate that journey. Thank you for coming on with Heather and me today.
Sharon Followill: Thank you. And I’ve got one more thing to say: get early screenings. Get early screenings, because they can make a big difference in how you live the rest of your life.
David Raubach: Early detection saves lives. Amen to that. That is a great way to close out the podcast. Thank you so much. Love you.
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