Through her involvement in Swim Across America, Katrina Martin, of Evanston, Illinois, has found community and strength in the wake of losing family members to cancer. Since 2012, Swim Across America, or SAA, has partnered with Rush to raise more than $2.5 million to support cancer research, leading-edge patient care and clinical trials.
Katrina was first introduced to SAA soon after her husband, Dana, passed away following a salivary ductal carcinoma diagnosis. Her oldest son, Aaron, who is on the swim team at Brown University, joined SAA’s Rhode Island Open Water Swim to honor his father.
The next year, Katrina and her middle child, Rob, honored Dana by participating in SAA’s 2023 Chicago Open Water Swim, an annual fundraising event in Lake Michigan. Katrina — who was dealing with the trauma of losing not only her husband but also her father and her mother, all within a span of just a couple of years — found a new community to embrace.
“You’re with people who have had to listen to these horrible diagnoses,” Katrina said. “But you’re still high-fiving and laughing and able to swim together and do these great things.”
Katrina did not know this particular group of swimmers before she started coming to the Chicago Open Water Swim. But Katrina swam in college and said her family has always felt a strong connection to the water. She found something “safe” about being able to work through her trauma among a community with which she had a lot in common.
“This just made so much sense to me to be around like-minded people where I can talk about my story with others who have the same fears and hopes, and just put that angst to use, whether it’s swimming or fundraising or getting the word out,” Katrina said. “Here, I feel powerful. I’m doing something proactive.”
After her initial experience in Chicago, Katrina joined Aaron last September for the swim in Rhode Island and has since contributed in other ways back in Chicago, including volunteering with SAA, starting a Junior Advisory Board — which includes her daughter, Julia — for the Chicago swim and identifying new opportunities to get more people involved from her local community on the North Shore. Katrina is excited by the opportunity.
“In so many cancers, there is a treatment that is effective, and people can live with cancer or be relatively certain it’s not coming back,” Katrina said. “My goal is to be part of a group of people who are fighting to get that for all people — to save people from facing the same challenges Dana did.
“Now it’s more important than ever for all of us to do our work to keep fighting and raising money. These researchers — if given the time, money and resources — will, if not cure cancer, continue to extend people’s lives. Be part of the solution. It feels really good.”
Getting innovative cancer research off the ground
For more than five years, Alan Blank, MD, an orthopedic oncologist, has participated in the Chicago Open Water Swim to raise funds for cancer research and care at Rush. He also participates in SAA’s annual Chicago Golf Outing.
Soon after joining Midwest Orthopaedics at Rush and RUSH MD Anderson Cancer Center, Dr. Blank was introduced to SAA by Patty Piasecki, NP, a longtime team captain for SAA’s Chicago Open Water Swim.
“It’s a wonderful experience getting in the water with all these people,” Dr. Blank said. “Everyone’s so motivated and upbeat. Everyone’s feeling good about raising money for a great cause. The positivity is contagious. It gives you energy. It’s an event I love going to. I look forward to it all year.”
Roughly six years ago, Dr. Blank received SAA funding for a collaboration with basic science researchers, including Jitesh Pratap, PhD, to better understand how microtubules — narrow, hollow tube-like structures found in the fluid inside a cell — affect cancer cells and how they can be shut down to treat various forms of cancer.
Dr. Blank has a particular interest in metastatic bone disease, when cancer leads to lesions in the skeleton that weaken bones and cause fractures. Basic science collaborations like this help advance our understanding of cancer, including what happens on a cellular level, why it spreads to bone and how to slow it down.
For Dr. Blank, SAA’s Chicago Open Water Swim is a reliable source of funding, typically raising $250,000 or more annually to support research projects at Rush. That money goes directly to Rush research, often to fuel pilot projects that help researchers get the data they need to seek larger grants. Without that support, researchers would not have the same opportunities to do the type of work that can lead to groundbreaking findings, medications, testing and more.
“It’s instrumental to the research group I work with here at Rush and for countless others,” Dr. Blank said. “We really need these early-funding sources like Swim Across America. Without these early grants, that research never gets off the ground.”
In addition to the importance of having a great relationship with SAA, Dr. Blank said there is something special about knowing that support comes by way of a collective group of survivors and swimmers, patients and caregivers, friends and families.
“To me, what creates that beautifully positive atmosphere is having that real-life connection to where this money is going,” Dr. Blank said. “It’s incredible. It just shows how many people care. It’s overwhelming to see everyone on the beach, trying to raise money for cancer research at Rush. It’s hard to put into words how motivating it is. It’s really unlike any other event I attend all year.”
All philanthropic gifts benefit initiatives of RUSH MD Anderson Cancer Center in the greater Chicago area and Northwest Indiana and do not fund research or programs at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
