Mary Gooze swims to raise funds for cancer research

One Woman Many Lakes

Article and photos by  MARGIE O’LOUGHLIN

Mary Gooze is a retired fourth-grade teacher from Madison, WI. She passed through Minneapolis this week with her husband Rob and, at 9am on July 21st, swam across Lake Nokomis with a small entourage of women.

Triathletes train regularly at Lake Nokomis, but this was no ordinary training session. Gooze has Stage IV metastatic breast cancer (MBC), and the swim across Nokomis was her 14th lake crossing to raise money and awareness for MBC.

Photo left: Gooze plied the waters of Lake Nokomis on a clear, still morning. She said of the 1.5 mile swim, “It just cleared my head. I got in the water and stopped thinking about cancer. Swimming sets me free.”

“I’ve always loved being active,” said Gooze, a veteran of several triathlons. Diagnosed with breast cancer in 2012, she underwent treatment and when it was over, felt well enough to resume her training. Persistent hip problems brought her in for a bone scan two years later, where she hoped to hear that her pain and stiffness were caused by running. Instead, she learned that the breast cancer had spread (metastasized) to her bones, a condition her doctor called incurable.

“Rob and I were going to take a trip to Seattle last summer,” Gooze reflected, “and I had planned to swim with my kids in a cancer fundraising event. My doctor didn’t see any reason I couldn’t participate, so I muscled through radiation treatment with that in mind. The Seattle swim, which turned out to be 2.5 miles in a wind-whipped Lake Washington, was extremely difficult. I did it though, right after the radiation ended, and it gave me a new sense of confidence. I felt like I could do anything, and One Woman Many Lakes started right there…”

Jen Baumgartner, senior director of community engagement for the American Cancer Society of Minnesota, said, “We’re here today to support Mary, an amazing woman with a story many people can connect with. People like her will make it possible for us to say, in our lifetimes, that we found a cure for cancer.”

The American Cancer Society invests more in breast cancer research than any other type of cancer. However, according to Gooze, “only 2% of those funds are directed toward research for MBC, considered the final stage of cancer. On average,” she continued, “there are 155,000 people living with this disease at any given time and 44,000 will die each year.”

“When I learned that funding for research was so limited,” continued Gooze, “I got mad. I decided to go jump in a lake, just to see if anyone would notice.” People did notice, and they started donating money earmarked for MBC.

Gooze has continued jumping into lakes, one after another. She and her husband will be heading out to Seattle again soon, to take on Lake Washington a second time. Gooze plans to keep swimming and getting the word out -anywhere that people are interested, willing to gather and donate money for much-needed research dollars.