Survivor shares joy, strength
Karee Van Runkle left the boys with her husband, Pete, that first year and drove Downtown alone. She hadn’t registered for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, but she wanted to be near other women who understood.
She was 40, and “cancer survivor” was new to the list of ways you could describe Karee.
That was in 2000. She was a happy and busy mom of three boys — the youngest, Brian, was just 5. She was (and is) gregarious. She was (and is) a hoot, a lover of birds and trees and adventure.
Now, she was also a woman
See
Page
who’d had breast cancer, like so many others who gathered that day with their joy and their tears and their hearts open to one another. “I just watched,” Karee recalled. “Hung out. It was so inspiring to see all those people. It just makes you so full of strength and empowerment.”
Since then, there have been so many Race for the Cure memories: Karee’s mother, in her late 60s, walking before she died of breast cancer in 2002. The first walk without her mother.
There have been races during good stretches, and races after bad news: another lump, cancer in her bone, a suspicious spot in her liver.
But always, she’s gone to have fun, to hug and to highfive.
“There’s nothing sad about it. I’d rather do that than go to Cedar Point. It’s a celebration,” she said.
Karee, who is 54 and lives in New Albany, walked yesterday with her husband (she calls him her saint); her two older boys (Drew is 28, Alan is 25); her sister and brother-in-law, Kim and Dave Hiser; and her niece Katie Hiser.
Alan pulled her close for a good chunk of their walk, and they spoke quietly in the midst of a raucous crowd. Karee told him how much it meant to have him there. She put her head into his shoulder and beamed.
“Right here are the people I fight for,” she said shortly after.
Yesterday’s race fell at a particularly unsteady point in Karee’s life, four days after she and Pete watched out the window at Port Columbus as Brian, now 20, flew to Georgia for Army basic training at Fort Benning. It will be 10 weeks until they see him again.
Before he boarded the plane, she reminded him that they are under the same moon. They promised each other that in times of difficulty they’ll remember what the other is doing and find strength in that. As she photographed the jet leaving Ohio, a rainbow appeared in the background.
On Mother’s Day, Brian gave Karee a letter. He told her to remember that he’s living his dream when she misses him, that her example has given him the strength to succeed.
Drew said he had to miss some race years when he was involved in sports in school, but he still has plenty of shirts to mark his family’s long history in Race for the Cure.
“It’s just so cool to come down and see the sea of people,” he said. “Especially since my grandma passed, it has become more emotional and at the same time it’s more inspirational.” Alan called the years of races and the time in between “a long journey.”
“She doesn’t have very many really good days, unfortunately,” he said as his mother stopped to hug a stranger, a woman grieving the recent loss of her sister.
In early June, Karee expects to undergo a procedure called ablation aimed at stalling the growth of a tumor in her liver.
She’s just finished a round of chemotherapy that was brutal. She’s thin (but gaining weight) at 104 pounds, struggles to find her balance and sometimes dozes off before the sun has set.
She’s losing her fingernails. She bruises easily. Tears stream down her cheeks even when she’s not laughing or crying.
Last year, when she underwent another type of chemo, Karee lost her ability to taste a juicy burger, smell freshly cut spring grass. She misses both and tries to will herself to remember. But she’s doing what she’s done all along — trying to ride these things out with a focus on what matters and a distaste for self-pity. She is grateful to the point of tears for her family, for her life and for her faith.
“I rant. I rave. I have my crying fits. But I get them over with and get them done,” she said. “I can almost be Pollyanna to the point of annoyance.
“I can walk. I can still walk. I can listen to the birds at the lake. I just have to find new happiness.”
Karee stopped to hug more than one stranger yesterday. They all seemed better for it.
“Today gives her energy, and you see the support of all the other people and you don’t feel alone,” Alan said.
Komen organizers asked Karee this year to drive a convertible pace car to start the race and to speak at the survivor ceremony after the last walkers — including a dancing, smiling, fist-pumping Karee — cleared the finish line.
When she spoke to the women around her and to the people who love them, she spoke of Komen’s role in advancing treatment, including a breastcancer drug that she believes has made the difference for her.
“I believe Herceptin, which Komen was huge in funding, I’m sure that’s a lot of the reason I’m here today,” she said.
“I’m going to be here for the next one and the next one.”
The day before, as she reflected on what she’s been through and where she’s headed, Karee said: “We all have our time and our time is set before us, and we do with it whatever we can while we’re here. It’s a good life. It’s a wonderful life. Every day is a beautiful day.”
In the last moments of yesterday’s survivor ceremony, the sun finally won out over the clouds. Karee beamed and headed for lunch and a cocktail with most of the people she loves best.