By MARK MOSCHETTI
Seattle Pacific Sports Information
 
SEATTLE – It started out as one of those annoying real-life moments.
 
The ferry to Seattle was late.
 
It ultimately became a life-saving moment.
 
Karen Byers scheduled her mammogram.
 
On that 2023 springtime morning, Byers, now 45 and in her second year as an assistant women's basketball coach for Seattle Pacific, could have been doing any number of things while she was stuck at the Bainbridge Island terminal.

 

  She could have been planning for that day's offseason workout with the team. Or she could have been texting with her husband or son or daughter.
 
She even could have been thinking about her next long-distance racing competition.
 
Instead, she picked up her phone.
 
"The boat was really behind schedule," recalled Byers. "I just had this feeling that, "You know what? I haven't made my appointment for a mammogram. I should do that.'
 
"I'm sitting in this ferry line with nothing else to do, so I'm going to make an appointment.'"
 
Byers made the call. And while she had absolutely no inkling right then and there, that simple act – punching in 10 digits on her phone – is the reason she now can look forward to many more practices with the Falcons. Many more conversations with her family. Many more endurance races.
 
Even many more watery commutes to Seattle, which she makes every day – sometimes in her car, sometimes on her mountain bike.
 
Parked in that ferry line, Byers was about to embark on a journey way more challenging, way more serious than just a 35-minute ride across Puget Sound.
 
STAYING IN SHAPE THE ADVENTUROUS WAY
As a basketball coach, Karen Byers is expected to set a good example for the players under her tutelage.

 

She does precisely that. She comes to practices and games fully prepared. She puts in the extra time helping head coach Mike Simonson develop the best possible plan to give the Falcons a chance to win – just as she'll be doing for Thursday's Pink Game against Central Washington in Brougham Pavilion.
 
And, while demanding that the players take good care of themselves, Byers, now in her first year as Simonson's lead assistant, takes good care of herself. That includes (when the weather is more accommodating) running or riding her mountain bike from the ferry terminal on the Seattle waterfront to the SPU campus, a distance of 4.7 miles.
 
Byers enjoys endurance races. Her most recent one was September 2022 in Colorado, the Hut Run Hut, a six-day, 100-mile trek from Aspen to Vail, along the Continental Divide.
 
But even if you're doing all of that, doing everything right, breast cancer doesn't care.
 
"I sign up for these really long adventure races – it's Type 2 fun, where some sort of suffering is involved, some challenge or skill that you have to accomplish," she said. "They're multi-day efforts, and I love that kind of stuff. I choose that. I chose to go to Colorado and run 100 miles in five days
 
"I didn't choose this. I didn't sign up for it. It was thrust upon me."
 
On the spring morning that Byers called to set up a mammogram, the first available opening was in the early autumn – this past September 11, to be precise, an ominous place on the calendar for anyone who lived through those events.
 
"I'll never forget that date – horrible memories," Byers, who was 22 at the time, said of that terrifying day in 2001. "And now, (that date) is the start of my story."
 
NOT A GOOD FEELING
That story started as soon as her doctor saw the mammogram x-ray – and saw something she didn't like and wanted to investigate further.
 
"Most of the time, it's nothing. But they always want to make sure," Byers said.
 
Making sure meant doing another mammogram on a different machine and also doing an ultrasound. The same spot showed up, as did another spot. Then two weeks later, biopsies were done on both spots. (The second one turned out not to be cancerous.)
 
Byers was told to expect the results in three days. But even at that moment, the vibes she was getting weren't good.
 
"It was still very much like they were saying, 'You probably have breast cancer' without actually saying it," she said. "They didn't lay it out like that, but I could tell. I could read their body language and could tell this was not going to go well."

Byers' husband, John, was preparing to head to Tennessee on a quick business trip, but was ready to cancel it to stay with Karen. She convinced him to go, telling him that he'd be back in town by the time the biopsy results came in "and we can hear them together."
 
The very next day – not three days later, not even 24 hours later – her phone rang.
 
"When I saw that it was my doctor, I just knew," Byers recalled. "I knew because it was so quick, and that could not be a good thing."
 
Byers was right. The diagnosis was invasive ductal carcinoma …
 
… the medical terminology for the most common type of breast cancer.
 
Although she was keenly aware of that possibility,  actually hearing it is still an indescribably jarring moment and difficult to fully comprehend for anyone who hasn't been through it themselves.
 
"It's kind of shocking. I'm still young, very athletic, in good shape, do everything right – and still this happened," Byers said.
 
SHARING THE NEWS WAS AS HARD AS HEARING IT
Even with the full-force impact of the news, Byers was immediately shown a glimmer of light in the long, dark tunnel in front of her.
 
"If I had to get breast cancer, this is the kind you want," she said. "This is, quote-unquote, 'the good kind.' It has a very high cure rate.
 
 

Just as tough as initially getting the diagnosis was having to break the news to her family.
 
At Karen's insistence, John was making that quick work trip to Tennessee. Daughter Ana was in California at Occidental College, where she's a sophomore majoring in history and minoring in religious studies. Son Dane is a junior at Bainbridge High School.
 
"It was horrible," Byers said. "I have Ana in college and I couldn't even be around her – I had to tell her over the phone. That was hard. My son took it hard. And telling my husband, who was still on his business trip, that was horrible."

In fact, John Byers had gone through his own serious health issue just months earlier.
 
"When it happened, there was a little bit of disbelief, coming off the year we'd had," he said. "But that quickly turned into, 'OK, we have a great support system; we have really good health care; we're fortunate to be blessed with a great family and both of our jobs are very supportive.
 
"Both of us kind of went into "we've-got-to-deal-with-it" mode pretty quickly."
 
Added Ana, "It was really hard for me. I'm at college in California, so I felt even more disjointed from the rest of my family. … I even offered to take a semester off because I had extra credits from high school. But she insisted that she wanted me to stay and keep doing my thing, and she would be OK."
 
'IT'S GO TIME … I'M GOING TO ATTACK IT'
The initial shock aside, Byers herself was dealing with the news as well as could be expected..
 
"It did take me a week or so to realize that I wasn't talking about someone else. I'm talking about me," she said. "I'm the one who has cancer It's not someone else."
 
Byers agreed that the experience of her challenging outdoor pursuits came in handy.
 
"I just said, 'It's go time.' Just like I were to attack a trail run or a bike ride, I'm going to attack it."
 
Her attitude and mindset were no surprise to anyone who knows her.
 
"It was hard, but knowing my mom, she was going to be able to get through it and everything was going to be all good," Dane said. "She just really attacked it hard and didn't let it get her down. She went into it 100 percent."
 
Same as she would as if she was attacking a basketball practice or game.
 
"That's Karen to a 'T' – she's one of the strongest people I've ever met," SPU point guard Hunter Beirne said. "She runs these massive marathons, she bikes to work, she does trail runs – she is so strong. I think that served her well because she didn't let it get her down."
 
All of them clearly believed in Byers. But it was 20-year-old Ana who offered a purely-from-the-heart perspective that can only emanate from the bond shared by a mother and daughter.
 
"My whole life, my mom has just been this kind of force for female tenacity in my life," she said. "When I was younger, she was doing marathons and triathlons and always setting this standard that women can be powerful and they have autonomy in the world and how they choose to move. That was always really important to me.
 
"Obviously, it was incredibly saddening when I heard she had breast cancer. But I knew if anyone had the tenacity to beat it, it would be my mom."
 
DRAWING UP THE X's AND O's
Just like figuring out what kind of offensive game plan to run against a top-caliber defensive team, figuring out this cancer-attacking game plan was going to take some time.
 
In Byers' case, an extra step was involved: She was adopted at birth and therefore had no family medical history of any kind, no knowledge of whether breast cancer "runs in the family." So, her Virginia Mason cancer team did some genetic testing.


Those results came back negative. On the one hand, that was good. On the other hand, "I still don't really know why this is happening," Byers said, "That's kind of frustrating."
 
As last fall went along, there were more appointments, and of course, more decisions to make. Through that time, Byers was especially grateful for her cancer team's flexibility allowing her to keep her daily life as normal as possible.
 
For her, "normal" meant coaching the Falcons.
 
"They were wonderful to work with, and supportive," she said. "Being a college basketball coach, my schedule is wild and not consistent. They were able to adjust their schedule and my schedule so we could get things done in the right amount of time. I needed some additional screening for lymph nodes, and they were able to get me in right that day so I could still go on one of our road trips."
 
Just as supportive were head coach Mike Simonson and the SPU team.
 
"Her joy for life inspires me in a lot of ways, and I'm so glad our players get to see that first-hand," Simonson said. "What an amazing life lesson they can learn at a really young age is to see a tough trial and see how people walk through it with faith and courage and love along the way. … As tough as the situation is, it's a really beautiful thing for all of us to witness and walk alongside her."
 
THE DAY ARRIVES
Byers' surgery was set for Dec. 20 – right at the start of the NCAA Division II mandatory seven-day shutdown surrounding Christmas. No games, no practices, no film sessions, no weight training – nothing scheduled.
 
Dressed in Seattle Pacific gear, Byers, her family, and her sister Ellen were at Seattle's Virgnia Mason Hospital at 8:00 a.m. The procedure was extensive, taking about five hours, and that after some lengthy pre-op preparation.
 
"When I woke up, I think I said something along the lines of, 'What in the world just happened?' or something like that," she said. "I'd never really had major surgery before and I thought, 'Oh man, I'll be out of here in no time.'

 

It wasn't quite that quick – she stayed overnight then went home the next day. But while she was in the hospital, Byers heard from the entire Falcons team.
 
"On my surgery day, every single player sent me a message. That was pretty special to me to get that," she said. "Then I had players bring me flowers and notes of encouragement.

"I really felt loved by them."

For the Falcon family – Simonson, volunteer assistant Robbie Cowgill, the 12 players and two managers on the roster – showing that love just came naturally.

 

 "It was very easy for us to be invested to know that she was going to be OK," Beirne said. "We really wanted to make an effort to (let her) know that we were in her corner and were going to be there every step of the process."
 
Sitting around isn't Byers' style, though that's what she had to do for a few days upon getting back home.
 
"I was down longer than I expected – it's not like bouncing back from a cold," Byers said. "That's a little hard for me because I like to keep going.

But she had plenty of help.
 
John "makes me coffee every morning and brings it to me. If there was a need, he was there before I even asked for it." Ana "had a lovely list of shows we wanted to watch. She was keeping me busy while I laid on the couch, and that's not easy for me." And Dane "is just pure humor" and was always there to help lift things that she couldn't lift.
 
"She's a champ, for sure," John said. "I think the hardest thing for her was having to take some time out to not work out as much or ride her bike from the ferry to the school."

And getting back to SPU and to the Falcons is what Byers wanted – the sooner, the better.

"These girls are so important to me," Byers said. "Not only did they help me get through because I wanted to get back on my feet and get back to them, I wanted them to see that even as adults, you fight through things and get through it." 

JUST. MAKE. THE. CALL.
All indications are that the surgery accomplished what it was supposed to accomplish: In other words … the doctors got it. And apparently, they got it just in the nick of time, too.

"Because we caught it early, we were able to catch it before it was in the lymph nodes," Byers said. "They actually found cancer leading up to the lymph nodes. It was in the system, but it had yet to actually penetrate the lymph nodes and get attached.
 
"We caught it right before things were going to get more serious."
 
There are still more steps to come. Byers will have to undergo some radiation treatment (but no chemotherapy) and will have regular visits every six months with her surgeon and oncologist for some imaging and exams.
 
In the meantime, the ongoing drive to encourage all women to get their annual mammogram now has another voice – and one who speaks from experience.
 
"It seems that something like this, you want to run from it or you don't want to get screened because it's scary," she said. "But sometimes, you just gotta go through with it. I would say just be an advocate for your health and don't put things off. Doctors have routine screening for a reason."
 
Usually, all it takes is a phone call …
 
… even if you're stuck in line somewhere.
 
"Who says 'thank you' for a late ferry? Who says that? No one," Byers said, laughing. "It's a whole lot better than it could have been if I'd never made that phone call while waiting for the ferry."
 
For Karen Byers, it turned an annoying real-life moment …
 
… into a life-saving moment.

 
 
"When life kicks you, let it kick you forward." – Coach Kay Yow
At Thursday's game against Central Washington at 5:15 p.m. in Brougham Pavilion, a table will be set up in the Brougham Pavilion lobby with information about the Kay Yow Cancer Fund, which works with and supports survivors, caregivers, and others who are battling to eradicate not only breast cancer, but all forms of cancer affecting women.



SPU SOCIAL 

• Twitter - @SPUSports & @SpuWbb
• Instagram - @SPUSports & @SPU_Basketball
• Facebook - /SPUSports

Seattle's only NCAA Division II Scholarship Program | #GoFalcons