Baxter mom to take ‘Ultimate Hike’ to fight children’s cancer

It is hard for Andrea Shaw to talk about the several children she and her family knew who died of cancer.

Holding back tears, Shaw explained that she wanted to help, and she’s turning 50 soon, so she signed up for the CureSearch Ultimate Hike on May 14 to both challenge herself before her milestone birthday and to raise money to fight children’s cancer.

“With all of the kids that we knew that had passed, I just felt like I needed to do something,” said Shaw, a Baxter Village wife and mother of two.

“I feel like there’s not enough research and not enough federal funds.”

Shaw must raise a minimum of $2,500 to participate in the hike. She has raised around $1,000 so far. All proceeds benefit Cure Search, a national nonprofit dedicated to funding children’s cancer research.

Shaw will hike 28.3 miles of the Foothills Trail in one day, which should take about 12 hours. She said she loves hiking, but has never done anything like this before, and the training has been challenging. She works three part-time jobs during the week and hikes 20-plus miles on Saturdays.

“I’m not an extreme athlete – just a regular mom,” Shaw said. “It’s a real stretch for me.”

Every day, 43 children are diagnosed with cancer in the United States, according to CureSearch. Of those, 12 percent do not survive and 60 percent of survivors suffer from lifelong side-effects of treatment, such as infertility, cardiac conditions and increased risk of metastatic cancer, where cancer spreads to other parts of the body.

“I just want people to realize, (cancer) can strike at any moment,” Shaw said. “You have a healthy child one moment and the next moment they’re getting pumped with chemo. You don’t think that it could ever happen to you, but it could, very well.”

Donations to Shaw’s CureSearch fundraiser are tax-deductible and she encourages everyone to get involved in some way.

“We have to do something…We all have children or children that we care about.”

This story was originally published May 6, 2016 at 7:28 PM with the headline "Baxter mom to take ‘Ultimate Hike’ to fight children’s cancer."