New beginnings

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These young women all faced breast cancer, but each has come out the other side happier, and fitter, than ever. Rosy Loft discovered dragon-boat racing

“After living in Holland for four years, I decided I had reached that crucial stage in my life: I was 34 and if I wanted to have children, now was the time to start. With that in mind, my partner Klaas van Noord and I returned to Australia.

“We had been back for three months when I watched a Meryl Streep film about someone with cancer. ‘Gee, I haven’t checked my breasts in a while,’ I thought. So the next time I was in the shower I checked my left breast. Nothing. ‘But how would you know anyway?’ I thought, and my hand moved to my right breast. I felt the lump instantly.

“I knew it was going to be bad news and I was right. I had an 18-millimetre tumour. I needed surgery, followed by chemotherapy, radiotherapy and hormone treatment. At the end of it, there was a chance I might not be able to have children.

“Klaas is the last male in his family and that can be a serious thing for a guy, so I was straight with him. ‘You could lose your family line. If you want to leave me, I understand. You have the right to find someone else who can give you children,’ I began. ‘But if you want to leave, then please leave now because I can’t go through all this and then have that at the end.’ Klaas didn’t hesitate. He replied: ‘Let’s just get you well. We’ll worry about that later.’ It was the best thing he could have said.

“After my surgery, I was handed a pile of leaflets and information about breast cancer. It was overwhelming, but one article did catch my attention. It was about an organisation called Dragons Abreast which encouraged breast cancer survivors to take up dragon boating.

“The group had been pioneered by a Candian doctor called Don McKenzie, who lost his mum to breast cancer and wanted to dispel the myth that breast cancer survivors should avoid upper body resistance in case they increased their risk of the incurable upper arm condition of lymphedema.

“So he got them to paddle a dragon boat. It was only intended to be a six-month experiment, but the women had such fun they refused to stop – now the ‘Pink Ladies’ are all over the world and in every state in Australia.

“I was really interested because I’d already been warned about the risk of lymphedema and told about all the things I could no longer do. At last, here was something I could do. When I heard Dragons Abreast was taking part in a national championship at Hinze Dam on the Gold Coast, close to where we lived, I begged Klaas to take me.

“I’d been out of hospital 10 days when I got my first glimpse of the Pink Ladies. I stared at them in their pink tops, pink feather boas, pink sunglasses and pink hats and thought: ‘They look completely crazy.’ But they were laughing and having so much fun, I also thought: ‘I want what they’re having.’ It was the first time I had realised there is life after breast cancer.

“I had recently started chemo the first time I went out in a dragon boat. The Pink Ladies wanted me to wait until I’d finished. ‘But I need to do this now,’ I insisted, because I felt as if my world had caved in and it was one of the few positive things available to me. I couldn’t wait.

“They understood and agreed and so I began to paddle, and even during the weeks I felt very sick, they didn’t mind if I just sat quietly in the boat. All this exercise and fresh air was quite foreign to me. I’d never been the sporty type and there were some Saturday mornings when I crawled out of bed in the cold and dark and wondered what on earth I was doing. But the moment I saw the water, I’d think: ‘I am so happy to be here.’

“I had six months of chemo, eight weeks of radiation and 18 months of hormone treatment which involved a monthly injection into my stomach, and through it all, I kept paddling with the Pink Ladies. It was brilliant. My aerobic fitness improved. I had all of those good endorphins and serotonin coursing through my body, I felt I was taking responsibility for my health and that, combined with the emotional support and the friendship in that boat, made it better than any drug.

“All the other Pink Ladies in my group were over 40 and most had children, but they became very special to me – like my second family, really. They taught me the importance of constantly setting goals for myself – even if it was something as small as rewarding myself with a cup of coffee after a blood test – but also of remembering how to laugh.

“One day, when I was still very new, we were having breakfast after our paddle and someone mentioned things called ‘chicken breasts’, which you could slip in your bra to hide the fact you’d had a mastectomy. ‘What are they? I’ve never seen one,’ I said, and next thing I knew, she’d reached in her bra and flicked it out, right in the middle of a crowded cafe in a trendy suburb of Brisbane!

“After a while, I had become so fit and proficient at dragon boating, I decided to become a more competitive paddler, so as well as paddling with the Pink Ladies, I joined the Brisbane River Dragons. It meant I had to train three times a week and do weight training, too. I did a 55-kilometre dragon boat marathon and I also went overseas to paddle. It seemed ironic: here I was recovering from a deadly disease and yet I had never been so fit.

“I even joined a mountain climbing expedition in New Zealand. I couldn’t believe the person I had become. I used to say people who did mountain climbing had rocks in their head; that it was something only men did because they always want to conquer things, but here I was, embracing the challenge.

“Four years had now passed since I was diagnosed. I was 38, so when I started feeling sick after a couple of regattas, I went to see my GP. Klaas came with me as he hadn’t been feeling too good either. ‘I have a stomach upset,’I told the doctor. ‘Are you vomiting?’ he asked. ‘Not really.’ ‘Diarrhoea?’ ‘No.’ ‘Is there a possibility you’re pregnant?’

“There was a long pause as Klaas and I looked at each other. I had missed a couple of periods, but due to the drugs, had presumed it was early menopause. ‘Let’s do a test,’ the doctor said. So he did. When the pregnancy test returned positive our jaws hit the ground. Klaas and I grinned a lot. Then we wept a lot. Then we hugged each other and, finally, we hugged the doctor.

“I had a truly great pregnancy. I continued paddling and won a gold medal at the premier open women’s event at the state championships. I even climbed 2010-metre Mount Hope. It seemed like a dream – I had become a gold medallist and a mountain climber while three months pregnant.

“Today, aged 40, I believe getting breast cancer was the worst thing, but also the best thing that ever happened to me. That’s not to say I’d want to go through the experience again, but it has given me great confidence. Mount Hope wasn’t the only mountain I climbed and, as a result, instead of asking: ‘Why do this?’, I’ve become a person who says: ‘Why not?’.

“I love challenging my boundaries and have discovered this is the secret to a fulfilling life: it’s a lesson I’ll be passing on to my beautiful miracle daughter, Indigo.”

Dragons abreast

The first breast cancer surivor dragon boat team was established in Vancouver in 1996, and took to the water in Darwin in 1998. Since then it has grown into a national and international movement encouraging breast cancer survivors to have fun, try new things and engage in physical activity, all while promoting breast cancer awareness.

Visit www.dragonsabreast.com.au.

How does exercise help?

Perhaps understandably, breast cancer survivors used to be wrapped in cotton wool – and exercise was one of the many things they were advised to avoid. But it has now been shown exercise is essential both mentally and physically for restoring good health and reducing the recurrence of breast cancer. According to Susan Davies, professor of women’s health at Victoria’s Monash University – and currently undertaking one of the biggest studies ever into the physical and psychological effects of breast cancer – physical activity graded to your capacity during and following breast cancer treatments can have many benefits. As well as increased strength, flexibility and weight loss, it is relaxing and will help improve mood and stamina. “If survivors can exercise within a support group, that is especially valuable as they’ll be setting team goals, are not alone and can be distracted from their anxieties,” says professor Davies.

Words: Beverly Hadgraft. Photography: Sam McAdam. Hair & make-up: Liz Golding.