Photo by Jenny Kirk Kari Loft is all smiles recently as she stands outside Marshall High School, where she teaches classes for English learners. The cancer survivor was determined to continue teaching, running and coaching despite enduring cancer treatments for most of 2018.

BMARSHALL — Before getting the news that she has cancer, Kari Loft enjoyed running. After finding a lump and getting a breast cancer diagnosis, she continued to run every single day — even during her cancer treatments and on the day of her surgery. It was her way of maintaining control in her life.

“Part of that is me being in charge,” Loft said. “Running was the best thing for me. I needed that challenge. I like fitness, I like education and I want to live. I wasn’t trying to be an inspiration, I was just trying to beat cancer the best way I knew how.”

Loft, a 44-year-old Marshall High School English learners (EL) teacher and mother of two tried to keep her daily routine as normal as possible.

“I was able to work through it, though I know not everybody’s story is the same as mine,” she said. “I took my treatment day (Thursday) off and then I’d come back to work on Friday. I wanted to stay in charge of my life. It’s an, ‘I have cancer, but it doesn’t have me,’ kind of thing.”

Loft found a lump near her armpit and had it checked out in January. After a biopsy was done in Willmar, she had to wait for results.

“I didn’t want to worry about it until I knew for sure, but the waiting is really hard,” Loft said. “I got a call at school and they said, ‘Yes, it’s cancer.’ So then I went (back to the doctor) and we had decisions to make on what to do.”

Loft opted to have a lumpectomy, which is also known as breast-conserving surgery, to remove the breast cancer tumor and some of the tissue that surrounds it.

“I’d heard from other people that having a mastectomy is pretty painful, that it’s too much,” she said. “I didn’t want reconstruction. I just wanted a lumpectomy.”

While Loft’s mom and sister were also diagnosed with breast cancer, Loft said she didn’t really know all that much about the invasive disease. Genetic testing revealed that she did not have the breast cancer gene.

“It’s the environment,” Loft said. “Maybe I drink too much Diet Coke or maybe it’s in the carpet. Who knows? But I really don’t worry about where I got it from because I have it. I’m dealing with it. Let’s move on. I’m never going to find out that answer. It could be genes they haven’t found yet.”

Loft started chemo at Marshall’s Avera Cancer Institute.

“It was about 20 weeks of chemo,” she said. “I did that here in Marshall at the Cancer Center. It’s awesome. It’s so funny to say that getting chemo is awesome, but they make it better. They’re very supportive.”

On the first day of chemo treatment, Loft was overwhelmed by the support she had from people, including the young athletes she coaches in hockey and fastpitch softball.

“I walk into my room and there are signs all over from my players,” she said. “One of the dads came in early and put them in there. I drink Tab, so they took a whole bunch of Tab cans and wrote messages on every single one. They were lined up in the windows. I walked into the room bawling.”

Loft received a lot of support from various groups of people, including her husband, Kelly, athletics communication director at Southwest Minnesota State University, and their teenage children, Dillon and Regan.

“My family was supportive,” Loft said. “They helped around the house and they knew when I needed to sleep, so they let me sleep. Dillon would see me around school and I’m the only teacher wearing a baseball cap in school, but I think he handled it well.”

Loft said all of her EL students knew about her cancer and she used the experience as teachable moments.

“This is my seventh year teaching EL, but I also co-teach biology to EL students,” she said. “I was able to relate my story to what we were learning in biology, with cells, cell growth and those kinds of things. My EL students knew that I’d have a substitute teacher, Deb Otto, come every Thursday. She made my life a lot easier, too. The students knew I’d be going in for my treatment and be back the next day.”

Loft spent many of her weekends coaching her daughter’s 12-and-under hockey team.

“I kept doing the same thing as I always did (before the cancer),” Loft said. “My weekends were coaching, so I’d crash when I could. But I didn’t have time for cancer. So I did my chemo for those 20 weeks. Then we also started softball practice. I still coach because I love it. It’s good for me, so why stop? It helps get me through.”

Loft said the kids on her daughter’s hockey team made T-shirts and signs in her honor.

“The kids are awesome,” she said. “I had one girl shave my name in the side of her hair. And on their stick blades, they wrote Team Kari. I think it’s unfortunate that kids have to do that nowadays. We didn’t have to do that when we were (young) athletes. We didn’t have cancer days.”

Though there were side effects of the chemo treatments, Loft was determined to keep running, teaching and coaching.

“One of the side effects was that I’d get flu-like symptoms, like weakness and body aches, which made going to softball practice a little harder,” she said. “I still ran every single day. This is what I’m most proud of and thankful for.”

Loft said that in September 2017, she had challenged herself to run a mile or more every day. Having cancer may have slightly slowed her down, but it never stopped her.

“I used to run about 22 miles a week,” she said. “At the beginning of the last school year, I said I was going to run every day. No days off. Once I found I had cancer, I wasn’t going to quit. I already had this running steak going — on September 7 (2018), I’d run 365 days in a row.

The surgery took place after chemo was completed.

“Running helped me stay focused,” Loft said. “Running is my time. Before chemo every Thursday, I would run. Then on the day of my surgery, I ran before my surgery.”

Loft said the following day wasn’t pretty, but she was still determined to run.

“The day after surgery, I ran with my arm next to my left side,” she said. “I ran a mile, which was basically a walk-run.”

The final step in her cancer care was radiation treatments.

“I had my lumpectomy and all my lymph nodes (in that area) were removed, too,” Loft said. “Six of the 19 were affected, but now they’re all gone. I had to wait a little bit — you have to recover — then I went into radiation for 6 ½ weeks. I did that right here in Marshall with a great staff.”

Loft finished her 28th and final radiation treatment a month ago.

“Some really smart doctor figured out the exact placement of the rays,” she said. “As I read it, it kills all the cells, but the cancer cells have a hard time regrowing, so they’re done. Your other cells can regenerate. I just go lay there. It’s not even a huge machine, but it just comes over you and shoots the rays at you. Overall, it’s pretty simple.”

Loft said the only side effects she felt were burns on her skin where the cancer was treated.

“It’s kind of like a sunburn,” Loft said.

The best part, according to Loft, who is a Marshall resident, was not having to travel very far for the short treatments.

“I feel like it’s huge that we have it here in Marshall,” she said. “My sister had to drive from Wahpeton, North Dakota, to Fargo, North Dakota, (60 miles one way) every day for that 10 minutes. For me, I’d just go to school, finish my day and go do radiation. The timing ended up working pretty well.”

Students and staff at Marshall High School have also been great supporters for Loft.

“After I finished radiation, I walked in the school and there were posters, signs and hand-written notes all over the school building,” she said. “I was super surprised. It was pretty awesome.”

Besides running, Loft found writing to be therapeutic. She not only enjoyed connecting with people, but also liked that it could be educational for others.

“Kari has been so inspirational to everybody,” said Karen VanKeulen, who often golfs with Loft. “She used (having cancer) as a learning opportunity for everyone around her. She was so positive. She only got down one day. She (wrote in her blog) that cancer sucks and that this happened and that happened. Then the next day, she said she was fine. She was just having a bad day. And I thought it was nice because it gives anyone out there an opportunity to see she had a bad day and got over it and that they can, too.”

VanKeulen said Loft also kept her sense of humor throughout the cancer treatments.

“She’s a good golfer and I’m a social golfer,” VanKeulen said. “I actually beat her head-to-head one day by one stroke and I said, ‘Wow.’ She said, ‘Well, you know I have cancer.’ She was totally joking. Later, she said she can hardly wait till she gets a 42 and I beat her.”

In her blog — found at www.mylifeline.org/kariloft — Loft shares the details of her journey. Having the heart of a teacher, it’s not surprising that there are educational posts. There are also heart-warming stories of support as well as ones that describe the not-so-great side effects of chemo.

“I was at a hockey game and accidentally touched my hair and more came out,” Loft said. “I’m in the bench, so what do I do with this hair? Later, we were shopping and I was trying to find a hat. I had a handful of hair in the store and didn’t know what to do with it.”

Loft also talks about finding a balance between being self-reliant and allowing people to pitch in once in awhile.

“I didn’t want people to do a meal train for me, but then you find out people want to do something for you, so you have to allow them to do that even though I was going to be tough and make my own meals and do my own grocery shopping,” Loft said. “That was my mindset, but it was actually really nice to have help. I needed that even though I didn’t think I did.”

Today, Loft said she feels back to normal. She loves her new hair and she’s able to run up to 4 miles a day now, though her consecutive running streak has ended.

“I kept it going ’til radiation was done,” Loft said. “I had 399 straight days of running, but now my streak is over. I still run, but if I don’t go running, I lift weights, go biking, Rollerblade or whatever.”

Loft experienced a lot of different things during her “bump in the road. She’s grateful for all the support and that she was able to keep working and running.

“I did it and I want people to know it’s doable,” Loft said. “I think it helps when you have a lot of support. Throughout this whole process, I was positive and in charge. For people who don’t exercise, maybe it’s not running a mile. Maybe it’s walking a mile or just doing some kind of activity. It’s about challenging yourself to do something every day.”