Our Story
We are Debbie Wappula and Katie Stavos. Two friends who are skating to fight cancer. Katie has been actively inline skating for several years and completed her first inline marathon in 2012. She has since skated 5 inline marathons. Debbie is a hockey coach. She is most at home in skates on the ice and more recently, on the pavement as well. She completed her first inline marathon in 2017.
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In 2014, Debbie was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer. She endured 52 weeks of chemotherapy and targeted therapy, a mastectomy, five weeks of daily radiation treatments in Rochester and an eleven hour reconstruction surgery. She continues to take daily medication and receives a monthly injection as part of her continued cancer treatment.
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Debbie was declared NEAD (No Evidence of Active Disease) April 22, 2016. One thing doctors do not discuss is the fear of recurrence. Approximately 30% of people that are diagnosed with breast cancer will eventually be diagnosed with stage 4 disease. Fear of this recurrence- of hearing that the thing she fought so hard against is back and this time is terminal- was all consuming. Every cough, every pain, every bruise came with a paralyzing fear that cancer was back. On June 3, 2017, while at her very first Christian women's retreat, Debbie was prayed over and later described the experience as "feeling the chains of cancer and fear litterally leave my body. I was awakened to a new life. A life beyond breast cancer." This new life beyond breast cancer has lead to inline skating as a way to physically reclaim strength, health, and the things cancer stole.
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On September 16, 2017, we skated the North Shore Inline Marathon and finished together with a shared time of 2:52:30. We raised over $700 for breast cancer research and skated a total of 1,123 miles for the year in 2017. (We even made the front page of the sports section for the Duluth Tribune! You can read about that here.)
Our goal for 2018 is much bigger.
Three marathons
41,245 Miles
$41,245
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The numbers are significant. Three marathons for the one of three whose initial diagnosis will become a metastatic breast cancer diagnosis. 41,245 is the number of people who will die of this disease this year- dollar and a mile to honor every life that will be lost.
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Our first marathon is the Apostle Island Marathon in La Pointe, WI on June 16th. The second is the Rollin' On The River Inline Marathon in Grand Forks, ND on August 25th and the third is the North Shore Inline Marathon on September 15th.
While three marathons in one season is more than doable for us, our miles goal and fundraising goal is impossible on our own. We can not do this without you. We need people willing to skate miles and fundraise with us. Maybe, together, we can save two little boys from having to say goodbye to their single mom. A daughter from losing the one person she can count on to tell her like it is. A friend from the reality she has prayed against since day one. A mother from losing her favorite daughter. A sister. A aunt. A cousin. A grandma.
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Together, we can also be the voice for those we can’t save. The ones who are too sick to shout. Those too busy trying a new drug, and another new one, and another experimental treatment. Together, we can fund the research that makes effective treatments a possibility.
Please join us in supporting those who are fighting for every breath, every step, every hockey practice, every bowling league, every football throw, every inline skate.
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We CAN make a difference.
