Walking, Optimistically

A week ago, my wife Katherine and I were among the thousands of people who turned out for Mercy Medical Center's Especially for You breast cancer race/walk.

I didn't go with any plans to write about the event. Then I realized my news organization had somehow forgotten to cover it. Some 15,000 people eluded us. These things happen. So I decided to make mention.

This was our first breast cancer walk. I had planned to run the 5,000-meter route, but then my wife would have been forced to walk all alone. So I graciously decided to walk with her, giving up my latest, best chance to realize my dream of riding in a real ambulance.

After one walk, I can give some advice.

First, make sure to register well ahead of time. I registered the day of the walk. I did not get a pink shirt or number, so I looked like an odd sock in that sea of pinkness. But I did get a year's supply of Honey Nut Cheerios in goody bags received at registration. You do not want to carry a metric ton of Cheerios 3.1 miles.

Also, more importantly, you should try to keep your wife from getting breast cancer. And if you figure out how exactly to do that, please tell the rest of us.

My wife was diagnosed last November, right before Thanksgiving. She had some pain and a lump. She didn't mess around and got it checked out. That was smart, but the news was bad. It came on a Friday at 5 p.m. It's the sort of punch that knocks you to your knees. Getting up is no sure bet.

She started chemo before Santa arrived and was still at it when the Easter Bunny was gone. Our kids will probably never forget the New Year's Eve when daddy shaved mommy's head.

She swears treatment wasn't as bad as she expected. I guess she expected to be tossed from a seventh-story window into a pack of wolves. Chemo's caldron of lifesaving poison packs a wicked wallop. She was so sick and tired, but so very brave and always hopeful. I would have rolled up into a weepy, self-pitying ball. She's a lot stronger, and thanks to that, we kept on living and working and moving forward.

Eventually, she made it, through chemo and radiation and a lumpectomy. Her tumor disappeared from the radar.

So we walked, with optimism, both heightened and tempered by what we saw. Those unending ranks of pink stretching as far as the eye could see on a brilliant autumn morning was stirring. But many of those bobbing heads in that bubble gum battalion were thinking about all the loved ones and friends hit by cancer.

It's scary, but good people are working on it. I saw 15,000 of them last Sunday.

n Comments: (319) 398-8452; todd.dorman@sourcemedia.net