A Way in the Wilderness: A Laurens County Woman Shares Her Cancer Journey (Part 1 of 4)
July 6, 2026
Editor’s note: Breast cancer awareness has a month on the calendar, but cancer keeps no such schedule. JoDee Watkins learned of her diagnosis four days before Christmas, on an ordinary afternoon, with no warning. The Buzz is sharing her story now, in her own words and with her blessing, because there is never a convenient time to hear this news, and because one neighbor’s honesty may give another the hope to keep going.
JoDee Watkins believed 2026 would be the year things finally turned around. By her own account, she was in the best health of her life. Then, four days before Christmas, a message on her phone changed everything.
Watkins, who runs JBW Farm in Laurens County with her husband, Jonathan, has spent the months since walking through a breast cancer diagnosis she never expected. She recently decided to share that journey publicly, hoping it might give hope to others facing the same fear. There is no season for that kind of news, she came to understand. It arrives when it arrives.
Her path began Oct. 8, 2025, when she noticed spots of blood from her left nipple, along with some pain, and made an appointment with her primary care physician. A mammogram and ultrasound followed Oct. 14. Because no lump was found, she said, no one was especially worried. An MRI came Nov. 26 and a biopsy Dec. 16. Her surgeon suspected the pain meant it was probably not cancer but wanted to be sure.
On Dec. 19, a MyChart notification delivered the words she had not let herself expect: invasive ductal carcinoma.
“How is this even happening?” she remembered thinking. “I’m in the best health of my life.”
Three days later, Watkins and her family boarded a Christmas cruise with her best friend, Jessica, and her family. Her children did not yet know. Almost no one did. She cried on and off the entire trip, she said, and at her lowest moments she considered writing letters to her children in case she did not make it through whatever lay ahead.
Her prayer journal held no entries between Dec. 17 and Dec. 29. When she finally wrote again, she recorded only two scriptures, Psalm 121 and Isaiah 48, and no words of her own. She was not there yet.
“I desperately needed a way,” she wrote. “I desperately longed for a river.”
In the weeks that followed, Watkins returned to the practices she had long taught others to lean on when their minds were in a dark place. She filled her days with scripture, sermons, books and the friends who would walk with her. She talked with Jessica every day. She read the verse in 1 Thessalonians that calls believers to give thanks in all circumstances, and she began to make a list of what she was thankful for, from an early diagnosis to her children to the home she found comfort in.
Through it all she repeated a mantra she credits to author Lysa TerKeurst, words that would carry her through the hardest months ahead.
“God is good. God is good to me. God is good at being God.”
Part 2 follows Watkins as she makes a decision few people talk about, and tells her children the news.
