CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) RESOURCE CENTER Read More
Add To Favorites

Grieving over her teenage daughter's death, this North Oaks mom ran for a brighter day

Saint Paul Pioneer Press - 11/12/2018

Nov. 12--Jennifer Swenson is a self-described private person.

So when the story broke about her running the New York City Marathon in honor of her late daughter Marit, the 47-year-old North Oaks mother was overwhelmed by the media response.

"Going to New York and doing a marathon is one thing," Swenson said after returning home from the Nov. 4 race. "But then I started to get all this media attention. It was very interesting and exciting, but it was really draining."

She used the run as a fundraiser that brought in over $35,000, well over her initial goal of $5,000, for cancer research. She ran with five others for the same cause, and combined they raised over $70,000. Her story was picked up by CNN, the Today Show, Runners World Magazine and People.com, not to mention local television stations.

When pressed for details about Marit's death at 16 from an aggressive pediatric cancer, Swenson drew a protective line around her family.

"I'm still a little stressed out by all the attention," she said. "To go out there and publicly share my story is difficult, but it was worth it for the greater good."

PROMISING FUTURE

Swenson and her daughter were running buddies and best friends, the only two girls in a family of seven. Swenson and husband Peter, 49, a dentist with Northview Dental in Shoreview, had Marit, Bjorn, 15; Birk, 12; and twins Anders and Soren, 10.

"Marit was an outstanding student, athlete and musician," said her friend Emily Ueki, a junior at Mounds View High School. "Her mom was always so proud of her many accomplishments."

Marit also played the viola, was a tennis team captain and loved science. She had tentative plans to attend Stanford and go into the medical field.

"She was a superstar," Jennifer Swenson said. "She had just a good, positive, loving outlook on life. She was truly a beautiful person."

DEADLY DIAGNOSIS

On New Year's Eve 2016, Swenson and Marit went for an eight-mile run around Como Lake in St. Paul, training for the Disney Princess Half Marathon in February 2017. It would be Marit's last run.

"She kicked my butt!" Swenson said. "She was so genuinely happy to have completed that training run with me on such a beautiful winter day."

Two weeks later, Marit began having terrible headaches.

The first round of doctor visits were inconclusive. Could be migraines, could be allergies, no one was sure. On Valentine's Day, an MRI scan revealed a mass in her brain the size of a small peach.

For the next six months, Marit endured brain surgery, radiation therapy and multiple trips to Chicago to be part of a clinical trial program. The surgery was successful, and Marit had a couple of good months afterward, but the cancer had spread to her spinal cord, and the symptoms returned.

"Just hours before the first practice of the season, Marit endured an excruciating headache," said Lisa Wedell Ueki, Emily's mother. "She was determined to go to tennis practice that Monday morning to lead her team. After practice, they headed to Minneapolis Children's Hospital where she spent her last several weeks."

Marit celebrated her 16th birthday in the hospital on Aug. 22. She died a week later.

"She was a beautiful young woman with so much potential," Ueki said. "We miss her joyful laughter and zest for life."

A NEGLECTED CANCER

The technical name for Marit's cancer is diffuse midline pediatric high-grade glioma, similar to what astronaut Neil Armstrong's daughter died of 56 years ago.

Children with these types of tumors are usually given only months to live.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced in 2016 that brain cancer had replaced leukemia as the most common cancer-causing death among children and adolescents aged 1 to 19 years, accounting for three out of 10 cancer deaths in 2014.

Marit's type of cancer hasn't gotten worse over the years; rather, other pediatric cancers have gotten more attention, more funding and have subsequently made more progress in finding a treatment.

When Swenson learned about this, she decided to find a way to push Marit's cancer into the spotlight so that it, too, could eventually be treatable.

Swenson had run the NYC marathon before and thought it was the perfect way to honor Marit's love of running and bring attention to this type of pediatric cancer. She teamed up with the National Brain Tumor Society and decided to raise funds for the Defeat Pediatric Brain Tumor Research Collaborative, an effort spearheaded by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

HER 'MARIT' RUN

Swenson began training. She had seen online that another parent had used a Fitbit smartwatch to design a route that spelled out his son's name. She decided to do this for Marit.

Starting at the University of St. Thomas, Swenson mapped out the letters of her daughter's name, a challenge that took nine miles and some backtracking to complete.

She encountered a fence at Pascal Street North while trying to connect the "A" and the "R" that forced her to pause her Fitbit's tracking and run back to Whole Foods on Selby Avenue in order to get to the other side of the fence and start it up again.

"I had to cross Snelling at a non-cross walk, so I could get the "A" perfect," she said.

Her run ended at the Bread and Chocolate and Cafe Latte restaurants where she rewarded her hard work with something sweet.

FINISH LINE

In New York, the media attention had taken its toll. She was tired and had even forgotten to pack her running shorts.

Knowing she wouldn't beat any personal record, she decided to try to enjoy the race, notice the sites she was passing and think about Marit.

In the end, it was friends and family who helped her get through the four-hour run. Minnesota friends she called "The Preschool Gang," because they had bonded when their kids were in North Oaks Preschool together, cheered her on at miles eight, 16 and 22. A friend from New York stood on the sidelines with a huge "Marit" sign.

During the toughest part of the race, organizers place a JumboTron that flashes a picture of a runner's friends or family who were unable to be at the race. Swenson's was a photo of her twins in their Halloween costumes -- a pizza slice and a pineapple -- cheering her on.

Having dealt with some dehydration and nausea, it was just the motivation she needed to finish.

"I ignored the yucky pain because I was running in memory of my hard-working, beautiful, amazing daughter and to raise awareness about this terrible cancer," she said in a Facebook post. "So, despite what I was feeling, I powered on through the last miles in Manhattan with Marit by my side."

___

(c)2018 the Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.)

Visit the Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.) at www.twincities.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.