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Torch of Hope Mail Tribune / Andrew Mariman Marji Wall of Medford will be one of seven Jackson County residents who will carry the Olympic flame through Klamath Falls early Tuesday. Wall's husband, Dale, nominated her because he thought her optimistic attitude during a six-year struggle with cancer exemplified the Olympic spirit. Twenty-five people will come from as far as Brookings to help move the flame toward Salt Lake City, site of the 2002 Winter Games. By BILL KETTLER Mail Tribune Marji Wall won't sleep much tonight. The retired teacher will be wide awake at 3 a.m. to help carry the Olympic flame to the Winter Games in Salt Lake City. She'll tote the torch a mere four blocks, but after a six-year struggle with cancer, she feels like a winner. "Every day I'm alive," she says, "I feel like I beat the odds again." Wall's husband, Dale, nominated her to be a torch-bearer because he thought her persistently upbeat attitude during her long illness exemplifies the Olympic spirit. Wall says she's carrying the torch to honor all the people who have helped her fight the cancer that first appeared in her breast, then surfaced in her spine, and most recently moved to her thigh. "What got me through was people," she says, "and that's what America is built on. My situation shows how people band together to help each other out." Carrying a ritual flame from Greece, where the games originated, to the site of each quadrennial competition has become a regular pre-Olympic rite. More than 11,000 torch-bearers will carry the flame across the United States by the time it arrives in Salt Lake City Feb. 8. Six other Jackson County residents will join Marji in the Klamath Falls leg of the relay: Brian Burgess, Medford; Jeffrey Christopherson, Rogue River; Elaine Delsman, Ashland; Amee Elliot, Central Point; Peter Fish, Gold Hill; and Dr. Douglas Naversen, Jacksonville. Doctors gave Marji little hope when they found a particularly aggressive cancer in her breast. "It's the kind of cancer that jumps around to different parts of your body," says Marji, who taught in Central Point, Gold Hill and Sams Valley during a 26-year career in Jackson County School District 6. Colleagues contributed sick days to give her two years off work to recover from breast cancer. She endured months of radiation therapy, a mastectomy and the removal of lymph nodes before eventually returning to work at Patrick Elementary School. But cancer returned, this time in her back. Doctors used radiation to keep that outbreak under control, but the treatments made her bones brittle, increasing the risk of breaks. She had to give up golf, bicycling and other vigorous activities, and she can't lift more than 2 pounds. "I can't pick up my grandchildren," she says. "Dale has to do that." Dale says Marji acknowledges her disease without letting it take over her life. "She never hid what she was going through," he says. "With all the cancer that Marji's gone through, she's still an up person." Marji still undergoes monthly chemotherapy infusions. "That can be tough," Dale says. "You're in a room with 20 patients in all stages of cancer, knowing that some people aren't going to make it." "It isn't fun," Marji says. "Dale has a hard time watching. There was a lady in there who had the same thing as me, and she didn't make it." The couple have turned Marji's torch experience into a major event for family members and friends. Marji wrote a poem about her feelings as a torch-bearer and attached copies to red-white-and-blue pinwheels that she'll give to everyone who comes to Klamath Falls to see her. "This is what Marji does," Dale says. "Every day is a big event in her life. I feel this has helped Marji focus on something besides her illness. The doctors always say a good attitude helps. If attitude has anything to do with (survival) she's going to be around here a long time." At least two dozen people plan to cheer Marji when she carries the torch. She doesn't plan to set any speed records during her four-block trek. "You only get to do this once," she says. "You'd better make it slow and make it last a long time." Reach reporter Bill Kettler at 776-4492, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.