Oswego woman, 65 this week and 20 years a cancer survivor, celebrating with half marathon ‘Something epic’

Jerri Lynn Baker is celebrating a few life milestones this week in the same way she’s celebrated life for the last 20 years.

She’s putting her shoes on and going for a walk.

Baker, an Oswego resident for 40 years originally from Plano, turned 65 on April 23. She also is celebrating being a 20-year survivor of Stage IV oral cancer and a 2½ year breast cancer survivor.

“I wanted to do something epic,” Baker said.

Baker, who took up running five years after her first cancer diagnosis, is traveling to Champaign-Urbana for the Christie Clinic Illinois Race Weekend, taking place April 24-26.

She will take part in the 5K on April 25 and the half-marathon on April 26.

“My friend has been trying to get me down to this race,” Baker said. “I thought this was the year to do it.”

Baker admits that she was not very physically active for a long time. She didn’t do sports in high school. She tried track as a freshman, and it wasn’t for her.

Her outlook changed after Aug. 27, 2004.

Baker felt a lump on the side of her neck two weeks after her mom was diagnosed with cancer. She went to the ENT, he took a biopsy, and they told her it was Stage IV cancer that started in her tonsils and moved to the lymph nodes in her neck. She had surgery to remove her tonsils. She was in the hospital for a week or two at a time for radiation and chemotherapy and had 52 radiation treatments around her neck area.

Baker’s youngest child at the time was 2 years old. She could hardly take care of herself, let alone a child.

“It was pretty harsh,” she said. “I almost died.”

Baker’s life expectancy at that point was two years. She survived that, threw herself a party, invited all her friends and made them dress in purple. Three years later, she was still alive.

“I thought, ‘I need to do something besides sit on my butt,’ ” Baker said. “I want to live life and not take it easy.”

She got out on her street and sidewalk and ran to the first mailbox, walked to the next and kept going. She trained with her daughter in the park, and together they did Baker’s first 5K, the Oswego PrairieFest 5K.

Baker later made a trip to Massachusetts for a fundraiser for oral cancer, her mother-in-law’s first race. She went down to Key West for a race. She did her first marathon in Tulsa, the Route 66 Marathon and has done the Fox Valley one.

Her “epic year” was to be 2020, when Baker turned 60 and she signed up for the Hennepin Canal 50K. When it was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Baker walked it on her own.

The races were part of Baker’s cancer journey, but it also celebrated life with her daughter, something they could do together.

Baker was healthy until 2022 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was caught early, and Baker did not require chemotherapy but did have 20 rounds of radiation and a radiation lumpectomy to remove the tumor.

Lungs already damaged from the 52 rounds from her previous cancer diagnosis, Baker ended up getting COVID and RSV. Her lungs don’t let her run anymore, so Baker walks. She can’t get out every day anymore, so she does every other day.

“It’s too hard – the breathing, sucking air the whole time," said. “But I’m hoofin’ it. I’m not lollygagging taking pictures of the flowers. I’m getting the job done.”

Baker decided after the breast cancer that she needed to accomplish everything she wanted to do racing while her body lets her.

Her last ticket to punch is the BOLDERBoulder 10K in Colorado on Memorial Day weekend that she had signed up for in 2020 before it was canceled. After that 10K, she’s listening to her body and sticking to 5Ks.

“We’re doing it now – don’t know what tomorrow brings," Baker said. “That was my object, to get things done on my bucket list.”

Baker, always ready to encourage others to run, hopes she’s alive and still going at 80.

“I don’t care what I do,” she said. “I’ll walk them, I’ll crawl them. As long as I can keep going, I’m happy.”