Walkers raise $2.2M to fight breast cancer
A year after her diagnosis, this Houstonian and more than 1,000 others take a long, hard stroll down city streets to raise money for care and research
Last year, Nikki Tripplett worked the Avon 39 event, in which people walk 39 miles to support those with breast cancer. This year, Tripplett, who since was diagnosed herself, joined about 1,000 others in the walk.
NIKKI Tripplett’s shoes were untied when she showed up at Stude Park on Saturday morning, just as the sun began to tease its way above the towers of downtown Houston. She’d walk 39.3 miles in those shoes over the next 30 hours, but she just needed a moment with the tongue up and the laces loose, skimming the mud.
Neuropathy, she explained. Her feet needed to breathe.
Sometimes the nerve damage makes her feet burn; sometimes it’s a tingle or numbness. This is a side effect of cancer treatment — one of the countless daily reminders of her diagnosis last year and the all-out assault her body has endured from surgery, chemotherapy and radiation in the months since. But numbness wasn’t enough to stop her for more than a minute as she bent down, pulled the laces tight and swooped them into a bow.
Then she walked. Shoulders up. Head high. Laughing and joking with a wide smile that turned strangers into friends as she wound her way through Houston’s sidewalks. Fast at first, but gradually slowing down as the first day of the Avon 39 breast cancer walk wore on. Even as she tried to hide her exhaustion. Even when things got so rough it didn’t look like she’d be able to finish the course.
For most of the weekend, Tripplett was just one of more than 1,000 men and women (mostly women, mostly
wearing pink) taking part in the annual walk, which covers 26.2 miles on Saturday and 13.1 miles on Sunday to raise money for breast cancer care and research. At this year’s Avon 39, which raised $2.2 million, 143 breast cancer survivors walked among the group.
Tripplett hopes to be one of those survivors when she walks again next year. But first she has to make it through one more day of surgery on Tuesday: a mastectomy and hysterectomy.
Just one year ago, Tripplett was working the Avon 39, doing marketing for corporate sponsor Reebok at the walk’s base camp. As far as she knew, she was perfectly healthy.
“There were women everywhere saying, ‘Thank you. Thank you so much,’ ” she recalled Saturday, as she made her way through The Heights. “And I asked them, ‘Why are you thanking me?’ And they said, ‘You don’t know how great you’ve made me feel.’ ”
‘Didn’t know anything’
She decided then that she’d sign up to walk in 2016, filling out a bib in honor of her grandmother, a four-time survivor, and her aunt, who died of breast cancer 45 days after being diagnosed at age 36.
Six days later, when Tripplett was in the shower, she found a lump in her left breast. It felt like a pea, rolling beneath her skin.
“I was diagnosed four days after that,” she said. “It was 10 days after I worked the walk. I couldn’t believe it.”
Just like her aunt, she was 36 when she was diagnosed.
“I didn’t know anything about anything,” Tripplett said. “I would donate and volunteer, do anything you needed me to do. But as far as information, I didn’t know where to go.”
That’s common. Many people diagnosed with breast cancer don’t know where to go or what to do for treatment. That’s why a substantial portion of the funds raised from the Avon walk go to “navigation” programs, to help guide patients through the treatment process and make sure they’re aware of different opportunities.
One of the organizations funded by this year’s Houston event was The Rose, a nonprofit that offers screening and diagnostic services. It received $100,000 toward a navigation program.
High racial disparity
Access to health care for breast cancer patients isn’t always equal. The Avon Foundation for Women recently published a study that found the mortality rate for black women is significantly higher than that for white women, due to four factors: differential access to screenings; quality of screenings; access to treatment; and quality of treatment. While Houston is known as a beacon in the health care world, Avon found that the disparity here was the fourth-highest in the country.
In this city, a black woman is 1.5 times as likely as a white woman to die of breast cancer.
That’s not a statistic Tripplett wants to be part of. After her diagnosis, her navigation program led her to some of the city’s best doctors.
“The doctor I had for my first mastectomy, she’s like No. 7 in the country. It’s crazy. I tell you, I had the best of everything. … I had to have the worst happen to me to get the best (care) I’ve ever had,” she said, walking beneath the shade of a live oak as a minivan cruised past.
Women cheered out of the van’s rolled-down windows, waving pink boas and blaring Katy Perry’s “Roar,” one of many pop-music anthems on the weekend’s soundtrack. The walk is campy, sassy at times. Women wear T-shirts that say, “Save second base!” or “Breast Friends Forever,” thrown over a pink tutu. Walkers sleep in pink tents pitched at Rice University, coming together for a “girls’ weekend.” At times, it’s easy to forget that this is more than a fun run.
When feet give in
But as the heat rose, Tripplett’s shoulders fell. By mile 20, there were moments when she leaned on her partner of seven years, Unique Roden. She’d been doing that metaphorically for months, as Roden scheduled appointments and covered the walls of their home with lists of what Tripplett can and cannot eat.
But leaning on Roden for physical support isn’t Tripplett’s style. She’s stubborn and fierce. Over the course of the day, she waved her hand when asked if her feet were OK.
“I’ll be fine,” she said, once, twice, more times than anyone could count. And then she wasn’t. After crossing the first day’s finish line, Tripplett hit the showers. Before she was even undressed, she lost her balance, thanks to those unreliable feet. She fell — hard — and collapsed onto the floor, right near her phone. She called Roden, who cut through the camp at warp-speed, a blur of a pink tutu rushing to Tripplett’s side, yelling “We need a medic!”
The wide smile was gone. Tripplett’s bright eyes drooped and she was lifted onto a stretcher. She screamed as violent cramps gripped her body. Flinched as the volunteer medics worked to massage her legs back into use. Her mother, Susan, cried as she watched. Susan, who was volunteering at the event, had handed her daughter a bouquet of flowers at the finish line just 30 minutes earlier.
Tripplett tried to stand after about 10 minutes but had to lie down again. Forget walking the next day, she was focused on getting up off the stretcher — a feat that looked impossible as the minutes stretched on and she winced in pain.
“Nothing’s impossible for Trip,” Roden said, watching her girlfriend on the stretcher. “She’ll be back tomorrow. Just wait.”
Back on track
After an hour, Tripplett could stand — or at least hobble — to a golf cart that took her to her car so Roden could drive them to their Meyerland home. There, Tripplett took an Epsom-salt bath and ate pizza on the couch.
“I didn’t move from that couch all night,” she laughed Sunday morning, waiting at day two’s starting line to carve out the last 13.1 miles. Her shoes were tied. She was ready and focused and just wanted to finish what she started. Feet be damned.
On the road, her wide smile returned. She was fresh and new, as though the previous night’s collapse had never happened.
The couple walked from one group to another, making friends with a crew of teenagers on bicycles and a 79-year-old woman who was walking her 146th Avon event in honor of her late husband.
They mostly listened to other people’s stories, instead of sharing their own. But when one woman asked, around mile 30, what it was that brought the couple out for such a long journey, Roden’s answer was simple and serious.
“I’m walking for my partner,” she said. “She was diagnosed with breast cancer back in May, and it has been a battle. And if she can go through that battle, I can walk 39 miles. And it makes it even better having her by my side with me.”
Just a few miles later, the couple raced down the final hill together, running side by side across the finish line.