Breast Cancer Dragon Boat

  • The Dream Team of breast cancer survivors paddles away. (Photo courtesy of the Dream Team)

It’s hard to imagine you would be glad to have breast cancer.
But some women are now saying getting the disease has changed
their lives for the better. These crazy-sounding women are finding new life in a sport called
dragon boat racing. Julie Grant brings us their story:

Transcript

It’s hard to imagine you would be glad to have breast cancer.
But some women are now saying getting the disease has changed
their lives for the better. These crazy-sounding women are finding new life in a sport called
dragon boat racing. Julie Grant brings us their story:


(Sound of women talking and laughing)


The sun is just beginning to set on another weekday as twenty middle-aged women start
gathering near a boathouse. They’re all wearing bright pink racing jerseys.
And they’ve all survived breast cancer.



A few work together to pull the canvas cover off their baby, a long, thin wooden boat.
This is what’s known as a Chinese dragon boat. The front end is a dragon’s head, with a fierce
red face and green scales running down the dragon’s neck. Dragon boat racing started 2500
years ago in China. Some say it was believed to ward off evil and disease.


At this Midwestern boathouse, these breast cancer survivors give thanks for their chance to
paddle a dragon boat. They get in, sit in pairs, and push off. There’s still some fun and laughter,
but most of the women grimace as they attempt to synchronize their race-strokes.


(Sound of prayer)



They get in, sit in pairs and push off. There’s still some fun and laughter, but most of the women grimace as they attempt synchronize their race strokes.


In a race, paddlers stroke about 75 times per minute. That’s a big change for breast cancer
survivors. They used to be told not to use their upper bodies. No carrying groceries, babies, or
vacuuming. It was thought they could get lymphedema, a swelling of the arms. But testing on
women in dragon boating has shown paddling is actually beneficial.


Paddler Lynn Fritz has had two bouts with breast cancer over the past ten years.
Fritz says she’s talked about her feelings with a support group to help her deal with the cancer.
But she loves dragon boating, she says, because it’s helping her get on with her life:


“This was something that I thought, this is fun. Instead of just, gotta introduce myself and say when I
had cancer, don’t worry you’ll get through it. We don’t talk about it out here, out on the lake it’s
just peaceful. I needed it, bad.”



The “Dream Team,” as they’re known, has started competing in dragon boat races. It’s one of
the fastest growing water sports worldwide. Some of the other teams are also exclusive to breast
cancer survivors. The Bosom Buddies and Abreast in a Boat are two Canadian teams. But most
dragon boaters are just regular paddling competitors. The women have to be strong to keep up.
The Dream Team, in only their first year on the water, won one of their races.


(Sound of boat)


Jessica Madder remembers watching dragon boaters from the dock of her vacation home in Nova
Scotia. She always admired the women. She remembers the summer of 2005, toasting them
with pink champagne as they paddled by:


“Little did I know that the following summer, I was going to arrive home and have the birthday greetings that I had developed breast cancer that year and I had been through all the treatments. In fact, I wasn’t even two
months out of treatment when I first got in a dragon boat. So that was my first introduction.”


Madder paddled all that summer in Nova Scotia. Then she came back to her home in Ohio, and
went to see her doctor:


“His nurse greeted me for my appointment and she said, ‘How are you?’ Because of course
she had seen me as a recovering patient in the spring. How are you? And I said, fantastic! I’m so healthy, I’m a
summer athlete. And I just bounced.”


When the doctor saw how well she was doing, he wanted that treatment for the rest of his
patients, so he bought the Dream Team boat and life jackets. Madder didn’t know if she could
recruit 22 women to form a full paddling team. She quickly had 72 interested. She gets teary
when she talks about them:


“I still remember Linda saying to me, ‘I’m a survivor for 11 years and this is the first time the
loneliness of cancer has left my heart.’ I mean, how am I not gonna cry? And then they say thank you. I stand there, and I am so
truthful, and say, look, I did this for myself. I just wanted to paddle a dragon boat.”


Madder jokes with her husband, she wishes she’d been diagnosed ten years earlier. She’s
hoping she’s got enough time left to start a dragon boat team on every waterway in her state.


For the Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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