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.'