Week three of Run 31. Eight women, eight miles, and every story that aired is linked below.
Their stories air weekday mornings at 8:45 on KAFE 104.1. The full schedule is at KAFE.com, and every dedication also lands on our In Case You Missed It page.
Your shirt is here. Come get it.
The Run 31 shirts have arrived and they look fantastic. Pick yours up at the station anytime during regular office hours, roughly 7:30 to 5, at 2219 Yew Street Road in Bellingham.
Every shirt was donated by Pacific Point Apparel. Go say thanks.
This week at a glance
Sunday — Josephine Lee
Monday — Dawn
Tuesday — Kato
Wednesday — Sheryl
Thursday — Rosalee
Friday — Kena
Saturday — Shannon
Sunday — Mary
Sunday — Josephine Lee
All the way from Liverpool, England. Her niece called her a magical, fairy of a woman, and was there beside her at the end — she fought like heck to the last breath.
Monday — Dawn
Dawn was 31 at her first diagnosis. Five years later it came back. Then a third time. She beat all three, lost her hair more than once, and never once lost that spirit — and now she works at a community cancer center, handing that same attitude to everyone who walks in.
“This is only going to make you stronger. You open your mind when this happens, you open up to the opportunities that cancer gave you. A voice to speak about it, because you’re going to live through it.”
Her message to anyone in the fight: never give up. Read Dawn’s full story and hear our conversation ›
Tuesday — Kato
Recently diagnosed with a rare form of breast cancer that only about 18% of patients get. Kato eats clean, trains daily, and did everything right — and she’s spending twelve weeks building her heart up before chemo’s hardest stretch. Cancer doesn’t care how carefully you live.
Her friend Brandi wanted to run these miles for her but had just had an operation, so Kato is running them herself. And when she told us about it, she talked about everyone except herself:
“I couldn’t do this without my friends.”
Read Kato’s full story and hear her dedication ›
Wednesday — Sheryl
Diagnosed three times — at 49, again five years later, and a third time at 65 — and cancer free twice before it took her in 2017. The second one was caught on a routine mammogram.
Her daughter remembers the grandma who built Lego worlds, baked the good cookie bars, and hand-sewed a Creature From the Black Lagoon costume back before you could order one online. And the mom who once literally gave her the shirt off her back — after she ran into a bee’s nest.
“I carry her memory with me every day. And I always think, ‘what would my mom do.'”
Read Sheryl’s full story and hear her dedication ›
Thursday — Rosalee
Rosalee is three weeks into this. Regular mammogram, then an ultrasound, then a biopsy — and on September 24 she opened MyChart and read the word carcinoma on a screen, by herself. Her lumpectomy is scheduled for early November.
She was honest with us about that first week: scared, anxious, in mourning, and ashamed — a feeling she’s still unpacking. Then she reached out to her community, and everything shifted.
Rosalee is a private person who went on the radio anyway, for one reason: if it gets one person to book their mammogram, it was worth it. Read Rosalee’s full story and hear our conversation ›
Friday — Kena
Thirty years a real estate broker, diagnosed in 2016, and pink every single day of October as a walking reminder to go get screened. Her cancer was found on a mammogram.
“The mammogram saved my life.”
Kena also told us about the gift in it — people she barely knew bringing meals, old friends turning up at the door. She got to see how big her community really was, at the moment she needed it most. Read Kena’s full story and hear our conversation ›
Saturday — Shannon
Diagnosed at 29, in her final year of grad school, with no family history at all. Five months of chemo, a mastectomy and reconstruction — and she’ll tell you she got a new boob for her 30th birthday. Cancer free since October 2011.
Her message: if you feel something, tell your doctor. And if they don’t believe you, keep advocating for yourself. Don’t let anyone decide you’re too young for something to be wrong. Read Shannon’s full story and watch the dedication ›
Sunday — Mary
Diagnosed in 2017, six months of chemotherapy, and cancer free since 2018. Mary is a gifted scrapbooker and card-maker who sells her work at craft fairs around town — and she kept right on crafting through treatment, because staying busy kept her spirits up.
Read Mary’s full story and watch the dedication ›
Come move a mile with us
We’re going all month. Run it, walk it, crawl it — treadmill, trail, a lap around the block with the dog. Any pace, any time of day. One mile is one mile, and it’s never too late to start.
Log your miles in the Run 31 Strava group, share them with #KAFERuns31, or text a photo to 360.676.5233. We love seeing them.
Run for them. Get screened for you.
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