Kari's Story
I am a ‘California Girl’ from early on. Aside from a few years spend in other locales, I grew up on the Central Coast of the Golden State. My life, like most California kids, was spent on the beach, playing outside, hiking, biking and enjoying the sun-filled days.
In April of 2003 my life was grand. My husband and I had a two-year-old son and a daughter just turning one. I was embarking on a new career juggling freelance work and being a mommy and I was loving both jobs. One day at the playground I scratched my shoulder and felt a small lump under the skin that I had never noticed. I was puzzled. After having my husband look at it and discovering a second lump on the back of my neck, I decided to check in with my family doctor. At that point, my life changed…forever.
The day after my daughter’s first birthday, I was diagnosed with stage IV metastatic melanoma—skin cancer that spread to my body, organs and bones. It was determined that a mole removed from my ear fifteen years earlier and then diagnosed as atypical, had returned with a vengeance. My prognosis was grave and terrifying. I immediately embarked on a two and a half year brutal protocol of biochemotherapy that required twenty-five, out of town, hospital stays away from my family and totally changed my life. Against all odds, I won and the cancer lost and I recently celebrated my daughter’s sixth birthday!
Winning a battle against cancer is not a victory that comes because of the efforts of one person—there was a team involved. In my case, it has been an amazing team of family, friends— both old and new, near and far—doctors, medical personnel and some people that I never even met firsthand. I am blessed, lucky and downright thrilled to be alive today and it is with all of this fueling me that I embark on ‘the walk of my life.'
The Event
May 1-5, 2008: Kari Worth, a Napa Valley mother of two young children and her father Michael Worth of Baywood Park, Ca., will embark on a five-day walk from Napa Valley to San Francisco. The adventure will mark the FIFTH anniversary of Kari’s diagnosis with stage IV melanoma and will celebrate a huge milestone—the gift of once again living life cancer free!
Kari and her father will be walking the route traveled so many times, both in sickness and now, in great health. Beginning from her home in warm sunny Napa Valley on May 1st, they will walk west into the Sonoma Valley and to Schellville for their first night. They will spend their second day trekking through the Sonoma and Petaluma River Valleys to Ignacio for night number two. A third day will begin as they head south and end in downtown San Rafael. Day four will be a rigorous day of traversing the hills of Marin County and hiking into the Marin Headlands. On Monday May 5th—nationally recognized as 'Melanoma Monday,' part of National Skin Cancer Detection and Prevention Month—they will hike out of the Headlands, and walk across the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco, over Pacific Heights and to California Pacific Medical Center to deliver a bottle of bubbly to Dr. David Minor, Kari’s treating oncologist for the last five years.
The walking conditions will be diverse: urban and suburban roads and sidewalks, abandoned railroad right-of-ways, bike and hiking paths, fire roads, a river crossing, and the Golden Gate span itself. They will stay in motels/inns, at friends, and in the Marin Headlands Hostel. There will be many environments--malls, shops, restaurants and motels to farmlands, vineyards and undeveloped recreation areas. Most days will likely have a UV Index of 8-10 and temperatures probably in 70s and 80s. Near zero chance of rain (we hope).
This is a wacky personal quest to put a challenging chapter of Kari’s life to rest and a feat that she hopes will help unite the melanoma community while raising much needed awareness regarding sun safety and funds for melanoma research. Kari’s experience has introduced her to a world of dedicated people and organizations that are out there on the forefront spreading the word about sun safety, supporting and advocating for those with melanoma and searching for new treatments. It is her hope that the long journey of the last five years and the upcoming long journey of the first five days of this May, will make a difference in the life of some other person, sadly diagnosed with advanced melanoma, in the future. Or better yet, that it will help prevent that person from getting melanoma at all!
Kari's father, Mike, is a veteran traveler with hiking, mountaineering, sea kayaking and sailing experience as well as overland travel in Latin America, the Middle East and South Asia. Kari's own experience ranges from Brazil to Borneo, and includes the Yucatan, Kenya and Europe. They both believe that this going to be an amazing adventure in their ‘own backyard.'
Check out Kari's website: http://www.555walk.com and the press her story has generated!
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