Dragon Boat Paddling after Breast Cancer

My new friend Lori is an amazing advocate for the power of exercise oncology and she's a wonderful hostess and educator here in the Northwest for those who want to try dragonboat paddling. As a 17 year survivor of breast cancer, she's met a lot of other breast cancer patients and her insights are so clear around one big value: just keep moving. I'm looking forward to having her back for a part two discussion. This was not enough for me! 

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Transcript:

My guest today is Lori Godfrey, another local breast cancer survivor in my own community. She lives in Banks, Oregon, and she is retired from her role as senior vice president at KeyBank. I wanted to talk to Lori today about her experience on a team of dragon boat paddlers called the Rose City Rockets.

She is a breast cancer survivor with a history of a diagnosis of stage 3B. Ductal breast cancer at age 49 in 2008, and she has not had a recurrence since. Welcome, Lori.

 

L:

Oh, thank you so much for having me today. Really enjoy it, being here today.

 

K:

Yeah, and for those of you who just watched my YouTube version of the interview with Danielle in the last couple of episodes, Lori is featured in that, in those gorgeous photos that we had as the montage in the background. So you might recognize her from that. So Lori, tell me about your experience joining this local Dragonboat team and what that's been like. How did you find them? How did you find out about them? What has that been like for you?

 

L:

My favorite subject, so I'm glad to be able to talk about it today. So the Rose City Rockets are an all cancer dragon boat team that was established just last year, officially in 2023, but we were on the water for the first time in 2024. I'm actually the founder, not only the founder, but the head coach for. Rose City Rockets. I started dragon boating with an all breast cancer team 14 years ago. And that's the Pink Phoenix dragon boat team that's also located here in Portland. They were the first all cancer, excuse me, all breast cancer team in the US. They were the second to be established globally. And that started a great big trend of women getting on boats for the first time in their lives, which was really my experience. I met Pink Phoenix, as I said, so many years ago, here in Portland at a Susan G. Komen walk. And they had a booth, I went up to talk with them, and within the week I was on the boat for the first time with them. That started a great, um, really a lifelong relationship. change for me. Um, I had been an athlete my entire life and was really felt very sidelined by my breast cancer. And that experience alone was what, and has kept me going in dragon boating, is that knowledge that I'm a lifetime learner, I'm a lifetime athlete, I'm looking for things that I can do. Those that have had a breast cancer diagnosis some 20 plus years ago given different experiences. information than women today. Previously, they were, uh, all concerned and still are concerned about lymphedema. So women that have breast cancer may have massive, uh, surgeries, obviously a mastectomy being a primary one. And when they do that kind of surgery, you know, you have these scars and these scar tissues that are there afterwards. And they're very difficult to break through and the lymphatic system starts to, um, get compromised, obviously. And you start, you can get lymphedema. So women were told, don't do repetition, don't do repetitive, uh, repetitive motions and no more vacuuming, no more tennis, no more golf.

So some of those sports that women would be able to do for a lifetime were no longer. available to them. So, uh, Dr. Don McKenzie, who is out of Vancouver, B. C., um, started a clinical trial, and his clinical trial was to establish and determine if women that did a repetitive motion, such as in paddling, uh, if they would have lymphedema, if they would have a recurrence or an episode or a flare of lymphedema. So, they pulled together these women, approximately 24 of them, to be in that first clinical trial that also was a team. Dr. Don happened to be a paddler And so he trained those women to be in a competition, had them on the water. They competed. He gathered the information that he needed and then when they were finished, attempted to disband them.

And they refused. Basically, they were having the time of their lives and they said, no, we're not going to go. Thank you very much. So, that first breast cancer team, uh, called “Breast in the Boat” and they're in Canada, in Vancouver, BC. And there's lots of that have found breast cancer, excuse me, um, paddling through breast cancer survivorship through, uh, just that support group that's there.

So that's how I started. I began as a local paddler and from there I was, within a couple of years, became what's known as a pickup paddler and a utility paddler and I started paddling with other teams around the area and then regionally and then one thing led to the next and I realized that Dragon Boating wasn't just happening in Portland, it was happening regionally, it was happening nationally, it was also happening globally. And that'sreally what changed my life, was those global outreach opportunities that I've been able to do via paddling. I've been able to make all these connections. with other breast cancer survivors throughout the globe that have really been life changing.

 

K:

That's great. So, you started doing it on, like, a weekly basis? Monthly? Or is it seasonal? How does it work?

 

L:

That's a great question. So I think a lot of people, especially here in Portland, if anybody's listening that knows Portland, knows the Rose Festival boats and the Rose. Yes, I was a paddler. I've done dragon boating before. And what they're referring to typically are the Rose Festival boats that take place in June and where the fleet comes in and we have it part of our Rose Festival celebration that we have here in Portland. that's all that I really knew about, um, the Rose Festival and about dragon boating happened to be that particular event. But that's not all that it is. That's a unique, very stylized boat that is not really used for anything but a festival. There are racing hulls, long canoes that we use globally. And so I started with Pink Phoenix. Uh, we paddled Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Also once, excuse me, Monday, Wednesday, Saturday mornings is Pink Phoenix schedule. And so it was three times a week. And so I just plugged into that experience three times a week. Never miss practice. Did it while I worked. Um, they work, they practice in the evenings.

You know, it would just change my whole life around to have a block of time in the evenings that I wouldn't be disturbed. And that was the greatest thing about dragon boating for me was the quiet. I was able to take my phone, put it on silence for the evening. Get on the water and only be responsible for myself and my team. And listen to the water, listen to the air, experience being outside, and being on a great big huge river, that's really pretty demanding. And then learn a new sport as well at the same time. So it was, there's a lot to take in when you first start dragon boating.

 

K:

And so, you started on the Willamette. Are you still on the Willamette?

 

L:

Yeah, still on the Willamette. So, I've paddled all over the globe, and so that's taken me on to both rivers, like our Willamette. Also, I've paddled on lakes. There are lakes all over the world that we paddle on as well. And the ocean. So there's three different ways that we get on those, each one of those. of water are, have different demands. there's a couple of different styles of the stroke that happen, coast to coast. So you learn a style of stroke, and then you get proficient at that stroke. And it's interesting, as a Dragon Boat coach Um, I've learned that, and especially as a paddler as well, that there are so many different pieces of a particular stroke. It seems like it's one motion, but it's actually broken down, I think at least 20 different pieces of that particular stroke. Just like taking a swing in a, a golf swing or a tennis swing. It looks like it's one motion, but there's a lot of different things that are taking place along the way, foot placement, head placement, uh, velocity, just all kinds of ways to change what that stroke looks like.

 

K:

I'm dying to ask, how does it go for a newcomer? Does it take long to learn these things?

 

L:

Well, it's interesting. Um, some are very quick at it and some not as quick. So being athletic is helpful. I think the people that struggle the most are those that have come from as a kayaker. So they've come to us as a kayaker and there's a particular way that you stroke as a kayaker or that you do not stroke as a paddler. So there's sometime muscle memory. It's a real thing, right? We learn a muscle, um, it has a particular memory when you go to pick up a blade in the water. You may want to do it a certain way because your muscles remember that. it takes quite a bit of time to get, to build a new muscle memory over an old one.

I think it's easier to establish a new one. So, kayakers tend to have a little bit more of a struggle. But they're comfortable on the water, so that's a positive. I learned very quickly. And, so I'll say that in fairness. I learned very quickly how to stay in time and how to stroke. And I continue to work, here I am 15 years later and I'm still working at particular pieces of my stroke. So it's never done. I worked at one element of my stroke for three seasons. every time I picked up my blade, every time I was in the water, I was working on a particular aspect and it took me three years to own that particular aspect. I know how difficult as a coach, I've learned how difficult it can be for some paddlers to pick up certain elements, but it just takes a lot of patience is what it takes.

 

K:

Yeah, makes sense. I'm really invested in getting more women out to do this and so I want to ask, is this like a normal sport where the coach is going to pressure you to perform at your absolute, you know, top performance and be extremely competitive or is it more about the social aspect and just being together?

 

L:

That's a great question. I think we get both in every, every time we're on the water. I get the social aspect, which is really not why I came to paddling. I came to paddling for the physical being. I wanted to do something and it really intrigued me that it was, had a breast cancer wrapper, but it was the sport at the gut of it. For me, that's really what it still remains is it's the sport first and then all this other stuff that comes with it. What comes with it is. It's simply the nice casual conversation I have with a woman that's going to be my bench mate that day, that may sit with me, that walks down the gangplank to get on the boat. We hug like crazy. We cry like crazy sometimes when somebody has difficult news. we share in the good news and we share in the bad news with each other. Um, the new trend that's happening across the globe now is a new trend which is the all cancer paddler. And so breast cancer paddlers have been able to be on the water for so long, for almost 30 years. Many times when I've come off the water successful as a breast cancer thriver paddler, others have asked me, spectators have asked me, ooh, I want, how'd you learn to do that? I want to be a paddler. How can I be on your team? And the news we share as a breast cancer paddler is, well, good news is you don't qualify to be on our team because it has to be all breast cancer survivors. But they'll say, well, yes, but I have lymphoma or skin cancer or, uh, you know, name the number of cancers that are out there. And what about me? It was the what about me, listening to people say what about me, that encouraged me to start another team that allows for all cancer as well as for men to participate. And that's really what I'm here to recruit to today is that we would love to have more women and more men for that matter, but more women in particular that would like to join the Rose City Rockets and just enjoy the camaraderie and then learn the sport. You feel so, um, empowered. It's incredible. I, that experience I would want for anybody, no matter breast cancer or not.

 

K:

Yeah. So how does someone join? Do they just show up and start?

 

L:

You can, you can. It's better to have a mentor like myself to help you get rolling. So if they contact me, I'm happy to get them all the information that they need. But basically for Rose City Rockets, we paddle on the Willamette. We begin March, which is coming up very soon. March 11th is a Tuesday. We wait until a daylight savings has happened and kind of brighten the sky up for us in the evenings. So we're there in the evening. We meet at 5:40 PM. We have 20 minutes of warm up then we get on the boats and I'm there with you as we have other coaches as well. So it's my self. I'm an advanced United StatesDragon Boat Federation Advanced Level Two Coach. Um, there's not very many of us, um, here in the West Coast in particular. My husband's also an advanced coach. And then we have other coaches that are on our squad as well that can help, especially the new paddler, get comfortable and teach them some of the very basics. You can't be wrong. You can only be right. We find a lot of wins. Uh, that's one of the things that I get complimented about specifically. is about how I'm able to help the paddler, find that value in what I'm teaching, be able and feel comfortable enough and confident enough in trying it, and failing. Cause you aren’t always successful. Sometimes we fail at the things that we're trying, and that's okay. We can't expect, all of us cannot come to a new sport, or a new anything, and expect mastery.

K:

Absolutely, if a woman was looking at joining, let's say this coming March or, or next March, what muscle groups would she want to start working on? Would she do pull ups, push ups, tricep dips?

L:

 

There's a great number of exercises that we have that are specific to paddling and you've hit on most of them. So what we try to do is keep our hip flexors. Moving and flexible. So we do some great squats. We might do some hip flexor work prior. You know, some stretch, some static stretching there.

And then get into more dynamic moves. So static is you're holding a stretch. And dynamic is activity, right? For those that don't know the difference. And so if you were to start out with, exercise bands and work on simply stretching above your head, stretching behind your shoulders, getting your shoulder blades down into your, back pockets is what I call it.

So basically working on that back, working on back muscles, working on your shoulder muscles, um, lats, core um, your, your core. That's probably where you're going to go. It is a full body workout. So we're going to go literally from toes. To the head of your top of your head is going to be working when you're in the dragon boat sport So we'll work on those things.

A lot of people think I got to have strong biceps Or I have to have strong upper body, um, physical strength in order to be a good paddler. It's not true, but I will say this, over the years I have developed bigger shoulders and bigger, yeah. So I have bigger back muscles and bigger shoulders than, than the average woman probably does. And certainly from my body style when I started, I've changed. My body has changed. To, in a good way. In a positive way.

 

K:

So it sounds like, more like a crew kind of setup where you're actually using your legs to push when you're paddling. Okay, I didn't realize that.

 

L:

That's right. So we have contact. It looks like we're sitting there, but actually we have a specific way that we place our feet and we utilize pressure on the bottom of the boat to do to go forward and to go backwards. You know, so we basically are doing this rotation while we sit, we rotate out to the catch to put our blade in the water, and then we do you rotate what we put pressure in the water to pull the boat forward. And so it's basically that's what we're looking to do is how do we pull the boat forward to get to the finish line. There is a lot to do, to paddling. I would say, I would, for a new paddler, try not to get too excited about those details. let me talk about clothing. So, of the things that people like, need to be experienced in gathering together before they come down to the water.

So they're going to get physically, you don't have to be a physical specimen, a fitness specimen, you don't have to come out of the gym and be on the water. You can come to us just as you are. And then you're going to, you'll learn quickly about where your deficits are. And we can work on building those up. but everybody's got them. So don't feel like, well, mine's worse than everybody else's. It's not the case. Um, so you come to the water, dressed in layers. We use a lot of dry fit. So that's anything that you can get wet, and that can dry. So we use, um, no cotton. No cotton on the boat. I come with leggings usually that are dry fit. Everybody's got yoga pants or yoga leggings that they can start out in, and then you layer from there. So I'm going to have waterproof shoes on, or at least shoes that I can get wet. I use a Keen. Keens are very popular here in Portland. It's a hiking shoe that has water cut outs in it. They are used by most paddlers in Portland.

And you can wear anything you like. Uh, waterproof shoes have become more, uh, tennis shoes have become more, available So people are using those now, too. And then from there, we're using a layer, a system of coats. So it's one long sleeve shirt. That's dry fit. Then I'm going to put a light jacket on that and then something waterproof over the top.

And that's going to take me through most, most weather, most weather conditions in a hat of your choice, right? basically what you need to come on the water. Uh, we use, come with water because we need to be hydrated while we're out. we start on the, uh, practice time for Rose City Rockets. We practice from six o'clock until seven. We get off the water at seven and go home and then we'll see you again on Thursday. And then we do it again on Saturday morning. 9 40 a. m. And then we're out from 10 o'clock to 11 o'clock. The nice thing there is a social aspect on Saturday mornings in particular. There's a little, restaurant called Little River Cafe that's very close to where we are, where we go out to the river center marina and it's part of one of those restaurants that's local they're very good about our paddling gear, you know, dripping all over the place and they have coffee available. Also serve a nice breakfast and it's filled with paddlers on Saturday morning.

So we have a lot of people sharing stories talking about the water and getting, you know, we recognize all kinds of other paddlers that are down there. Because we're, I've been part of that community for so long, that I know paddlers on every team, I've paddled with every team, almost, I've raced with them, um, so there's a lot of, a lot of that camaraderie that's there. It's, it's super fun.

 

K:

Do you think that most cities have room on a breast cancer paddleboat team at this moment in time? Like, is there room for people to join?

 

L:

I think they're always recruiting. There, there's a challenge, uh, with breast cancer teams, in particular. And, and it would be, hopefully it's true for our all cancer team as well. Now, all cancer, I'm saying that's our, Rose City Rockets--there's probably 50% of us that are breast cancer survivors.

Yeah. So there's only room for 20 paddlers, right. So, if I have 20 that come out that's great, but I usually have 24, right, 21. So I've got a boat, I'm always growing. So you might find a team in a particular city that's already at capacity, they're managing. They'll figure out a way to put you on a boat. The way we work it right now is that we only have, a boat sits 20 people, 20 paddlers, 2 by 2. Right, so they sit like pistons in an engine, and everybody works together as one, going down the water. Um, the Rose City Rockets are only about 14 of us that are really Rose City Rockets. Then we have supporters that are helping us from other teams. That are not, that are not all cancer survivors. They come to us and help us fill in.

Because as we continue to grow our team, we need to get on the water. So we're just reliant on other people to help us. And sometimes I have to go help a team do the same thing. Right? So it's about helping our community members, all of our paddling members, get on the water.

 

K:

Where would someone go? Is there like a national hub where you're looking for teams with openings?

L:

There's two of them. So the one for all cancer teams is the best resources to go out to the U. S. DBF. The United States Dragon Boat Federation has a great website out there that can show you all the breast cancer events that are taking place might be specific to breast cancer across the country. And then there's also one, a tab also for all cancer festivals that are happening. It also, there's another tab there that will show you where the teams are located across the country. I think for me, when I, as an example, if I wanted to travel to Denver, Colorado, and I want to see if there's a Dragaboat team there that I can paddle on. The first thing I might do is Breast Cancer Teams, Denver, Colorado. And I'll look for teams there, and if one shows up, I'll contact them and see if I can come and paddle with them. They're very accepting. We, again, it's a great big global community. And if somebody's traveling to a particular town, we're going to try, if they're visiting here, we're going to try to get them on a boat. Because it's, it's just fun to do. And it's part of our story, and it's how we build the community as well as our skills as paddlers. Being able to get on a crew with any team across the country or world. So that's another one way to look at it. Um, and then getting on Facebook is a great way to search.

There's so many teams. I know that people are moving away from Facebook for a thousand reasons. And it happens to be where there's a lot of information regarding dragaboating. So, can't just throw it away. That's a great site to go into and just start looking. how I would find somebody a day if I wanted to paddle in any city in the country, I would look that way first.

 

K:

So the keywords would be dragon boating and dragon boat team, probably?

L:

if I'm looking specifically for, that would be for any dragon boat team, and if I want to find something specific to breast cancer, I could look on the USDBF site. Or, I could look at another one, I'm going to give you another acronym, IBCPC, it's the International Breast Cancer Paddling Commission, International Breast Cancer Paddling Commission.

It's the overarching organization for all breast cancer crews globally. So it's a way to see who's building teams, what's happening in your community, what's happening in a particular part of the world that you might be interested in. I've done some outreach helping, uh, paddlers start giving a great example, a super duper story that I love. I was in Argentina with a group of women, all breast cancer survivors that I've paddled with. And that group, there was a team of us of about 10. We traveled to Argentina, we went to Nahuel, and we met, we had to put on a festival. And we trained, I think about 48 to 50 paddlers. women that were living in this very remote area, basically it's Patagonia, had learned and were learning to paddle in their kitchen chairs by themselves with a, with a broomstick. And they had never seen a boat the day that we showed up there. And it was so much fun to see these women, breast cancer survivors all, some super young, beyond young. It's incredible when you travel to other countries and see how young The women that are being diagnosed are. It's a sad fact. sure it's true here for the U.S., but you see, they're out more publicly, I think, maybe in other countries. I don't know, but I'm running into them there. Anyway, um, so they're learning to paddle with this broomstick in a chair. so we started out that way when we started training them in Nahuel in Patagonia. This is two years ago. And then got them in a boat. It was mayhem, chaos, exciting. And by the end of that day, it was a lot of tears shed and just an emotional I've never experienced anything like it. The women were so grateful. We were so proud to be able to share this sport. And at the core of it was just female energy. Just women, loving women, for the sake of loving.

It was incredible. I just ran into somebody from there just a week ago. Uh, that knew me from that experience, and we just bawled our eyes out when we saw each other. was just, you know, and unexpectedly, I didn't expect to see her, didn't expect to cry my eyes out when I saw her. It was just, I'm still carrying that around. So it's those kinds of little pockets. life that are happening through dragon boating that are incredible. That's why everybody needs to get on a boat.

 

K:

 

I have two more questions about Dragon Body before we move on. One is, for those who are in debt because of their breast cancer medical bills, how much of a cost requirement is there to join a team?

 

L:

It's a great question. So it costs money to travel. No question. Right. And a lot of our teams do travel. There's some of that, but it shouldn't be what stops you from getting on a team. pink Phoenix is a great example. That's local. Same thing with, um, Rose city rockets. It's true for. I can think of a number of teams that it's true for, for here in Portland, that have scholarships available, for one. Um, it's not that expensive. Our fees for the year just to paddle, that's to get on the water three times a week, is 210 for the year. Uh, you can't get a gym membership for that.

you can't get a, just a class, any one single class anywhere for that, for a year's worth of paddling three times a week. We have, we have gear, right? So you don't, we do wear a PFD, uh, paddling, uh, flotation device when we're on the water, so to make sure that we're all safe, and that's required here in our waterways. Uh, but we've got them to borrow down on the dock, so there's lots of ways you can kind of limp your way to, uh, paddling, and you wouldn't be alone.

If somebody didn't have the money. wouldn't be alone coming in there with not having a lot of equipment or not really having a lot of cash. Um, we had a paddler last season that paddled with us. Um, well actually we've had many that are on scholarship. Um, there are ways. So if somebody lets me know that they want to be a paddler, I can find a way to get them on the water. It won't be a financial burden.

To travel is another issue, but there's still lots of regional paddling that can be done. You know, where you carpool with somebody, that you share a room with somebody, you know, that you just do a lot of cost sharing and cost savings in that way. And you'll be surprised how, how inexpensive it can be to get to a venue. here in Portland would be Ridgefield, Washington, to Salem, Oregon, to Um, Vancouver Lake to, uh, where else can you go That's, there's several right there. You know, that people can attend.

K:

I was wondering, so I just started a local walkers team to do relays together year round, similar to what you're doing, a little bit less intensive, but one of the, so I named it walk away from breast cancer. I thought that was a clever name. And one of the gals that signed up said, um, She liked the name because she doesn't want to get together with other breast cancer survivors to talk about breast cancer. Is that kind of how your culture is? I kind of feel like it might be similar for you.

 

L

Very similar. And it's funny because there's a lot of resistance for women to be in a support group, right? I mean, so it's like, I don't want to get in a support group and talk about my. 3B and my, you know, and get into all the details about how many lymph nodes I had removed. While it's important, while it's important information, it is times we share that personally, one on one, when some weird thing has happened for somebody. Hey, I've got to go in and have another scan done. Something popped up on the last scan I had, I'm going in. It might be conversations like that. But the core of what we're doing. It rarely rarely comes up.

It certainly doesn't come up on the boat. Um, we paddle. That's what we do. We paddle, and our goal is to paddle like every, if you will, like bodied, you know, or fully capable body. So that's one of the things that does happen, is that, know, we have the restrictions. I have no pectoral muscle on my right side. All removed surgically. I have nothing. How am I paddling? Well, I'm paddling because my other muscles are compensating. But I have a lot of scar tissue, so I've got a lot of issues that happen for me as a paddler that I have to work through. But that's just what happens. I may need a seasoned paddler or a seasoned breast cancer dragon boat paddler to help me understand what I need to do to accomplish what I'm trying to accomplish, whatever that task is. And so it might be nice to be able to talk to somebody about my specific problem, but it is not the core reason we're together. So, talking about the walking away from and not walking into a support group. I think that's really it. I think that if we weren't able to say that, I don't think we'd have the women that we do on our team. I can only think, honestly, of about three or four women that I know that are there for support first and paddling second. And that's saying something. I know hundreds of women that paddle.

 

K:

 

Okay, so it is available if you want to talk about what's going on with your, your current situation, but people aren't dwelling on it. They're not dwelling in the past. They're walking through it and walking away from it kind of.

 

L:

Yeah. And before we go off dragon boating, I wanted to say, you know, we were talking about recurrence was one of the things I wanted to bring up… So Dr. Don McKenzie, I'm going to circle back to him for a second. Right. So the science that he had about, yes, you don't get lymphedema when you paddle, went beyond that. He's continued to do research in these past 30 years, focused on breast cancer survivors specific to dragon boating. And he's found out all kinds of things, but one of the things that's happened with him is that he's determined, and there's science out, you can find these, I think these are published papers at this point, where you're, he's through a prescription is suggesting weightlifting while you're doing chemo. So actively getting very physical while you're doing chemo will keep, reduce your symptoms through chemo and also may reduce your chance of recurrence. This is where the science really becomes important is that it's not just, us talking about it and saying that, yes, this happened to me. we're really talking about scientific evidence where I paddle and I am limiting opportunity for recurrence.

I had a stage 3B aggressive cancer diagnosis. I had a 20 percent chance of survivability. I had only one wish when I had my diagnosis, which was to see my granddaughter. Which I had none. My daughter wasn't even, you know, not in love, didn't have a relationship. And I had all these things that I wanted to see and dreamed about having. It was just a prayer. All those things have come true because I've been able to survive and thrive over these last decade and a half. I’m telling you, it's because of the nutrition, because of the "Walking away from cancer" that you're talking about. And dragon boating being on the water. So there's a lot of, a lot of data that's out there that show you that you can re reduce your recurrence.

Can you do it with other sports? Maybe. I don't know but I can tell you that it's proven in dragon boating. So they've got showing that breast cancer survivors can have, you know, can reduce their recurrence. Blood cancers are also there as well as colon and prostate. They have data on all of those particular types of cancer as regarding dragon boating. It's pretty exciting.

 

K:

Yeah. Absolutely. And I'm, and that's why I'm moving in that direction with the podcast. I wanna learn more and more about different ways to do this with this exercise oncology concept. It's proven with walking too. So that's why I'm doing the walking and the relay teams myself.

 

L:

I think walking is such a key piece when new paddlers are with me or I'm getting ready to get back into full blown season, which starts again in March. I did my first half marathon and it was really wasn't so much about the half marathon It was about training for dragon boating. So I always had everything I do always seems to be geared towards being better physically so that I can do better as a dragon boater.

 

K:

That's great. It's very inspiring.

L:

I'm aging, right? And so that's the other thing that I, I coach an older team, a master's team, and there are women and men that are , 60 to 90 that are paddling. And what I, what I see about myself and what I see about senior citizens is that they change their, their stride as they get older. And they're basically taking their strides like this and they start to widen it out because they're widening their stance so that they don't fall. Right? So it's all about. Stability and stability exercises and there's quite a bit of that that goes on in dragon boating exercise that's very helpful that can help me long term for my whole life. So, stability, functional exercise, all of that is part of this can be achieved through this dragon boat sport.

K:

 

Okay. And you mentioned the full, full blown season. It starts in March. Does it end in the fall and take, take a break for the winter?

L:

 

To the end of October. So, for here, it's tough to be on the water. Unless you've got light. And so we try to as soon as this daylight savings happens on either end of the spring or fall, we get off the water. Not to say that we don't paddle in the evening, late in the evening. 'cause we do, we still go out for all kinds of reasons in the dark. Um, we went out for Christmas ships this year and did we do some fun things like that? We were out for light up the night with the lymphoma organization, a dragon boat lit up on the water while the pa, the walkers went across the bridge. It was, it was quite something quite moving.

 

K:

Beautiful. Oh, it sounds like such a great community. It's very attractive.

 

L:

It has a lot to offer. All ages. All ages. We've got a new Dragon Boat member that's just joining. Uh, she's in her 30s. Just turning 30. Um, you talked to our friend Danyel that you mentioned. And so, Danyel's young as well. It's a big, wide group of women. interesting to have friends. I've got friends that are in their 80s. I have friends that are in their 30s. I don't know how else I would have such a broad variety of women if it wasn't for this.

 

K:

Yeah. Well, I wanna talk a little bit about some lessons you've learned in your own personal story and what you would, the kinds of advice that you would give to a, a new breast cancer patient because of what you've been through. You've got 17 years of perspective and experience at this point. What do you tell folks when they're struggling?

 

L:

At the beginning? Well, I think it is a struggle at the beginning. I remember very easily, and I can just, in a second, can get there. Remember Dr. Love's giant book that she wrote on breast cancer? Where I was working, there was a bookstore right across the street. And so on my lunch, I would go over right after my diagnosis.

I didn't have my prognosis yet, but I knew I had breast cancer. I went over to the bookstore on my lunch, and I would open that book, and I started to read it. And I couldn't get all the way through it because I started to get into details that I couldn't fathom. Having a mastectomy, having, losing my hair, I mean some of those things. I couldn't fathom it. And so I'd have to close the book and I'd go the next day. I'd start again at that same spot and move forward. I mean it's just you can only get so much information into your soul time.

So all of it just seems like drinking out of a fire hose initially. And then finally you kind of wake up to something you know you've probably heard before. But now it's important to you, right? You, you don't really know what it is. You dismiss it and now it's, now it's here and it's real for you. Um, our walk through breast cancer is different for every woman. You know, some women that have a stage one, when they talk to a woman that's got breast cancer, you know, they make aplogies and excuses, and I'm sorry’s that, “I'm sorry to talk about my stage one cancer. When you've got stage three.” That's kind of a silly thing. I mean, I understand when women say that, but it's really silly because you find out over time that our treatment, may be very similar in some ways between our stage 1 and stage 3B.

You may still need a mastectomy, I did need a mastectomy. Um, you may not need chemo, but I needed chemo. So, I mean, our treatment plans may be somewhat different. The women that I tend to have the most to say to are the women that are, have a similar diagnosis that I had and prognosis, which I did meet women that were stage 3B that were, ER, PR positive, HER2 positive, like I was. There happened to be a drug that was relatively new, Herceptin, that had only been available just in a few short years prior to my diagnosis that I was able to take. So, you take all of these elements, modern medicine, all of what it had to offer me, so mastectomy, full radiation, you know, as many radiation treatments as I had, so I had the full spectrum of 34 treatments, it's the max you can have of those, I had a double mastectomy, I had chemo for a year because I had Herceptin infusions for a year after my primary care or my primary, um, chemo. Then I took oral medication for the next 10 years after that to, um, several different ones that I took that finally were for tumor suppression. One of the things that I think was unique for me is I did everything that was offered to me and I did all the Eastern medicine as well.

So I did Reiki. I did acupuncture. I Had a prayer circle that take, you know took care of me worldwide I had a prayer blanket that had been created for me during my treatment that I wore as I slept So, I mean I did everything Um, and probably would have picked up a rabbit's foot had there been one available. I mean, you're just doing everything you can to survive. And that's what I did all of those things and I kind of inched my way out of treatment, you know, did all the things.

Is it fun to go through treatment? It isn't. But I did meet women in that time of my life that had the same prognosis that chose not to do treatment. Chose not to do Herceptin. Chose not to do treatment. Chose not to do Herceptin because they were afraid of a side effect. And they ended up dying within a few months after we met. And so super sad. It. was a fear about something happening with her heart that stopped this one particular woman.

My same age, my same prognosis, everything. And literally, in my, the way I look at it, kind of willed herself to death. She said, I'm out. I don't want this. I don't want to be in this treatment. It was too much for her. So, I think that. And she had a good, you know, she had family support. I don't know why her walk was so different than mine, um, but it was.

And so I say to women, do the treatment that's suggested. Do all of it. In my 10 years of treatment? the times that I was dragon boating and super sore from all the work I was doing. My joints ached, my bones ached, from the treatment, you know, from the oral medications that I was taking. But I did it anyway. But I took it anyway. I soak in Epsom salts, I take aspirin or I take Tylenol or some other thing before I get on the water. After I get on the water. Amino acids before and after I work out because it reduces my muscle pain. You know, there's ways that you manage through this. Um, it does take some gurus, you know, to help you figure out how to do it. It's nice, but it's available online too. You know, breastcancer.org, I don't know if you're familiar with that organization.

K:

Yep. They have a podcast too.

 

L:

Yeah, and, and so I listened to that, especially late at night when everybody was in bed. And I had nobody to talk to and I would wake up with that fear or that new, that kind of question that I had. Um, You know, all kinds of questions that come up about treatment. Um, how are you gonna feel? Nausea, can I work all, you know? What about, uh, short-term disability? Those kinds of questions can be asked answered. looking at breastcancer.org, is this a great site for that? So in the middle of the night, I would get out there and search for something and get an answer.

It was a great forum for that reason, you know, if women hadn't got out there before me and been willing to put their life stories out on. That location or be in a podcast like this. How are we going to get this information?

 

K:

Yeah. Did you ever finish Dr. Love's book?

 

L:

I did.

 

K:

It's a big one.

 

L

 

It's a big one. It's a big one. I finally bought my own copy and had it. You know, it's, uh, it's one of those things. A hard copy is something that's interesting because all of it's available to us online today. So you don't really need a hard copy of anything, really. Uh, but I did have a hard copy and I had that with me and visible for a while.

And then I got rid of it because it was some kind of a reminder that I didn't love. But I'll tell you, want to know how I, what really saved my life? I believe this Well, so when I had chemo, I had been reading and studying about, I don't know if you're familiar with this science, this Japanese writer that did the science about what happens to water...

K:

Yeah. Negative ions.

 

L:

Yeah, negative or positive. So I've been doing a lot of reading about that and I thought to myself, okay, I've got all these chemicals that are in this chemo bag that I'm going to be infused with. And a lot of women are saying, I don't, you know, that's a chemical. That's, uh, that's death. That's the devil.

It's called all kinds of things. And, you know, it's going to get into my body and they have all these negatives about that chemo. So what I did is I changed the structure of what was there by writing on the outside of the bag. And I wrote love on the outside of that chemo bag every time I had an infusion.

So instead of having an infusion of something that could kill me, even though that was the point where I was to kill the cancer cells, I was being infused with love. And. I think my mindset around that infusion really mattered. I had a friend that was in treatment, in recurrence, desperate and she was in her late stage and it was funny, great girl, 34 years old, very young, not going to survive, right?

But there she is, struggling to do it. And she was still doing treatments and could do her, even do, take her chemo bag off site and do it. She was something else. But anyway, I told her about that. I said, you need to put love on there. So whatever's important, you put it on there. Whatever's important. She goes, well, what kind of stuff are you talking about?

I said, important shit. I'm talking about the important stuff. Whatever's important to you. So that's what she had written on her bag was “important shit.”

 

K:

Yeah. Oh, the beliefs are so important. I believe that with all my heart. Yeah. And so are the positive wishes and thoughts and prayers.

 

L:

Oh, my gosh, all of that. I never discount it. You know, um, I had cards that would show up at my, in my inbox, you know, from home, from third graders, from some elementary school that I didn't, never met, didn't know them, and they had written me a card. So there was a lot that goes on, being open to it. Open to any kind of treatment, open to any kind of positive feedback that you can take it.

K:

it reminds me of a story I always tell about my acupuncturist when I first started having the symptom of bloody nipple discharge, which is a common symptom for breast cancer. And they couldn't find any breast cancer when they went in to do the biopsy. I had no diagnosis, but I had still this bloody nipple discharge.

And of course, The conventional medicine oncologists were freaking out and like, what do we do? We have to do a big excisional biopsy, blah, blah, blah. But my acupuncturist wasn't freaking out at all. He said, you know what that discharge means is that your body is cleaning out those dead cancer cells that you are killing because you're so powerful.

You're so effective at getting rid of this cancer. And he was saying this with a smile on his face. He was relaxed. He wasn't in a panic. And it's such a contrast. Both are true, right? They're. They're both true, because you do need to be worried. You do need to be vigilant and keep doing the biopsies until you find it. But you also need to be proud of yourself and the fact that your body is a cancer killing machine.

L:

Yes. Yes. And then you also stay vigilant. You know, that's such a key piece of that. I had to chase my cancer down too. Um, didn't, wasn't, didn't show up, didn't show up in my breast. I went in for a regular breast cancer, um, mammogram and they saw something, it was interesting, saw something reactive. It was sent off to an expert.

He says, no, just, it's just a lymph node. So it discounted what it was that I had, right, well, what they had seen. So said it was reactive. Set it, set it aside. Six months later, I was at my physician again, my gynecologist at that time, and said, said it to her. Hey, what about this? She goes, we need to go back.

Let's go back and have it done again. Second time, still nothing. I found it myself on my ribcage, on my ribcage. There was a lump that I had about three ribs down that I happened to find in the middle of the night one night, and it And that's where it ended up sitting down and I, cause I knew that something was up and found it there and that's what ended up being, um, biopsied way down here, down my ribs. And then they, they were able to then find it because they couldn't find it. It was actually sat in the middle of my chest on my sternum, which is how it got attached to my pectoral muscle. um, and which is why I had to have the whole thing removed. And then others that, find it themselves or that mammogram that really does work. So absolutely need to have the mammograms even though our two stories were always quite a chase.

 

K:

Yep. Absolutely. Yep. They're both true. Anything else that you had wanted to come to share?

 

L:

I think that I'm excited about, um, women and men, um, that might come join us with Rose City Rockets. We need you, right? We need your enthusiasm and your, your good vibes and bring them on down there. We can take care of you no matter if you're an athlete, a retired athlete, want to be an athlete. we've got a place for you.

 

K:

Oh, that's great. I love the openness of it. I think part of what intimidates me about athletics is that it's like stepping into that competitive space can be really intimidating. So thank you for making it a welcoming place for people.

 

L:

You’re welcome. You're so welcome. That's what it takes.

K:

I will hope to see you on the river soon or on the lake, maybe when I'm paddling by in my kayak.

L:

Yeah. I'd love to see you out there and tell, we'd love to hear more about your walking group too. Sounds like a great time.

 

K:

Okay. Yeah. All right.

 

L:

Great. Thank you. Thanks for your listeners too.