Ten years ago, Marg Teets entered the hospice center and told the staff to sign her up.  She didn’t want to be there; she felt there were too many others who needed the service, and she wasn’t ready yet. 

Her doctor insisted.

It had been a rough few years.  The then-71-year-old was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2008, and then breast cancer in 2010.  She had surgeries, and then in 2012 received radiation and chemotherapy that wiped out her immune system.  

“I weighed 222 pounds when I started and 160 [at the end].  I lost 62 pounds in five weeks from the treatment,” she says.  

She spent 11 days in the hospital, received daily IV fluids, and in the end, she was so weakened that she couldn’t walk.  

Still, the hospice staff, who knew Teets because they had helped members of her family, couldn’t believe she was there.

“She asked me what I was there for.  I said, ‘Well, I’m here to sign up.’ She started laughing.  She said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding, right?’ I said, ‘No, I’m not kidding, the doctor told me to.’  So, they went ahead and filled out the paperwork and everything,” Teets recounts.

“That was in 2013, and I’m still here.” 

It took her six months to walk again, but once she could, she didn’t want to stop.  She decided to start walking to raise funds for what has become a list of about 12 different organizations, including Lending Hands, Washington County Hospice, and Relay for Life.  

“I just decided I was going to,” she says of her walking.  “I set a goal of raising $10,000 in 10 years.”

“This is my tenth year; July 17 will be 10 years.  And right now, with the help of a whole lot of beautiful people, we’ve raised $19,783,” she reports.

“I wasn’t really sure I could even make the 10 at the time,” she continues.  “But I thought, well, 10 years sounds like a good number.  I’ll just do it and do like $1000 a year.  I wasn’t sure I was going to [be able to] do it, but I set [the number] high to keep me walking.”

“And that worked,” she says. “I’m still here.”

Teets says that walking has always been something she’s done, ever since she was a kid, and that she doesn’t find it a hardship.  She currently walks at least two miles a day, mostly outdoors around Kalona, but indoors at her apartment if the weather demands.

Walking outdoors allows her to meet people who are often generous, and she is thankful to all who have contributed to her walks, both financially and emotionally.  

“Everybody’s just really been great,” she says.  “I got to meet such beautiful people and heard their stories.  Thats kind of helped me with dealing with if I have a problem.”

Cancer continues to shadow her; it claimed the life of her husband in 2015, and her daughters and son face their own battles with it as well.

Her eyes tear up due to the recent passing of her best friend, Sharon McDougal, who helped her with her fundraiser walks.  “I’m walking right now in memory of her,” she says.  

Now 81, Teets has lost many loved ones, and she says, “The hardest part in surviving this long is all the younger ones that I’ve lost.  It just gets harder and harder.”  But she continues to count her blessings and stay positive.

“The main thing is to never give up,” she says.  “Just keep plugging.  Step by step, day by day, do whatever you can do and just hope for the best.  Pray a whole lot.”

She has raised double her original goal, and her 10-year anniversary is just a couple months away, but she doesn’t intend to stop now.  Marg is going to keep on walking.

“I plan to do this as long as I can possibly do it.”