Cleveland Mom Beats Breast Cancer, Launches Support Group

When Penelope Hoyett arrived for her postpartum checkup at Cleveland Clinic, she thought the lumps in her breast were normal. Her doctor's concern changed everything.

Within days, Hoyett's nipple began retracting. At just 36 years old, with a six-month-old baby boy named Logan, she received devastating news: HER2-positive breast cancer that had spread to her lymph nodes.

"For me, it was breasts, be a mother," Hoyett said. "We'll figure breast out later. I have to be here for this baby."

The professional patient navigator, who spent her career helping families access care, transportation and resources, now needed that help herself. But she refused to let fear win.

Hoyett endured 12 rounds of chemotherapy while caring for Logan. The exhaustion became so intense she couldn't dress herself in one sitting. She'd rest between putting on her shirt and pants, searching for words to describe the bone-deep fatigue.

Her village rallied. Logan's godmother became her primary caregiver. Colleagues donated paid time off so she could focus on surviving.

After chemotherapy, Hoyett chose a double mastectomy followed by radiation. Then came a nearly 11-hour reconstructive surgery where doctors built new breasts from her stomach tissue.

"I walked past the mirror for a couple days," she recalled. "Then I stopped, like, hmm, I'm a stranger in my own body."

She ordered a full-length mirror from Amazon and made time to reacquaint herself with her scars and her changed shape. That personal work became the foundation for something bigger.

Sunny's Take

In June 2025, Hoyett launched Thrive Beyond, a trauma-informed support group that meets monthly at Cleveland Clinic's Stephanie Tubbs Jones Family Health Center in East Cleveland. The program addresses the exact challenges she faced: physical recovery, emotional healing and rediscovering yourself after cancer.

"Thrive was really my real life lived experience," Hoyett explained. "The things that I knew I was challenged with and that others would need help getting through."

Within eight to ten weeks of her major surgery, Hoyett returned to work at Cleveland Clinic. Now she helps other breast cancer survivors navigate their journeys with the same fierce determination that got her through treatment.

At her bell-ringing ceremony marking the completion of her hardest treatments, Hoyett wore a shirt that read: "Cancer started to fight, but I won it with my faith." Logan's matching outfit declared: "Cancer tried the wrong mama, my mama won."

Today, Hoyett continues building the support system she wished existed during her darkest days, proving that survival can become service.