In 2013, he had a routine physical on a Tuesday, a biopsy on Thursday, and on Friday, he learned he had cancer. A couple of weeks later, he had a mastectomy.

“The toughest thing for me was actually letting the rest of my family know — no one likes to admit that they’re not well, that they have a disease that’s potentially serious. There was a part of me that wished I didn’t have to tell anyone about it, but chemotherapy is not something you can easily hide.”

Mr. Panagy, who grew up on the Upper West Side and later lived in the Bronx and on Staten Island, made it his goal to never miss a day at the office when he had cancer. He was working in the pharmaceutical industry at the time and continued commuting to Manhattan from his home in Connecticut.

“If I hung around doing nothing, it would’ve been worse,” he said.

Mr. Panagy still visits Sloan Kettering several times a year for checkups.

He retired a year after his recovery and now spends his days tending to his house, traveling in the winter, and playing “three or four rounds of bad golf each week,” he said. Though he still at times feels self-conscious taking his shirt off at the beach, he said, “I think it’s behind me.”