Iona Elwood-Smith and Tracy Shann, the NZ Breast Cancer Dragon Boating co-captains, after the parade of nations at the world champs. Photo / Supplied to Newsroom.co.nz
By Aiden McLaughlin for LockerRoom
A group of Kiwi breast cancer survivors pull off a remarkable medal-winning feat at the dragon boat world championships.
At 40, Iona Elwood-Smith found a lump in her breast. Although it was benign, cancer was lurking beneath it.
She then endured the physical and mental trauma of surgery, chemotherapy and losing her hair. But it’s a journey she feels “blessed” to have been through.
Now, 17 years later, Elwood-Smith is a world champion in dragon boat racing – seizing her second chance at life.
Every time Elwood-Smith and her Breast Cancer Black Dragon crewmates go out on the water they continue to be challenged, but in a positive way.
Their years of dedication paid off last month, when they competed at the dragon boat world championships in Germany – which featured a category of breast cancer paddlers for the first time – and returned home with a swag of medals.
The Breast Cancer Black Dragons won gold in the 1km race, silver in both the 200m and 500m, and bronze in the 2km. Elwood-Smith, 57, was part of every crew.
“When we won gold and stepped onto the podium – having a haka done for us and hearing our national anthem – it was just absolutely amazing. Who would have thought 17 years ago when I got breast cancer that it would lead to here?” Elwood-Smith says.
“It just raises the roof on what’s possible for breast cancer paddling. It’s super exciting.
“And the whole movement around it shows you can go through something terrible and have a positive outcome – there is life after breast cancer.”
A mum-of-three, Elwood-Smith was on holiday in Picton when she discovered the lump. She swiftly saw a doctor, and a mammogram and biopsy followed.
Although the biopsy came back negative, her specialist wasn’t convinced – a deeper investigation revealed cancer behind the lump.
“People tell me all these dreadful stories about breast cancer, but I have to say I’ve just felt blessed about the whole journey. I’ve felt so lucky,” Elwood-Smith says.
“The specialist could have said she was wrong [to think it was cancer] and I wouldn’t be here today.”
Two weeks after the diagnosis, Elwood-Smith underwent a mastectomy and reconstruction at the same time. But she was reluctant to have chemotherapy – although she’d been told the treatment would increase her survival rate by 8%.
Her husband then spelled out some home truths.
“I had a bit of a tantrum saying I wasn’t putting myself through all of that, it wasn’t worth it, it was too hard and I felt perfectly fine. It was going to make me feel sick and yucky,” she says.
“I remember my husband – in his pyjamas, propped up in bed – just looked at me and said, ‘What if it was me?’ I realised I would have told him: ‘Suck it up Princess, you fight for every per cent you can get.’
“He said, ‘Well there you go then’ and went back to reading his book.”
The chemo was “horrible”, Elwood-Smith admits, and although she wasn’t precious about losing her hair, no one warned her that it would hurt.
“It hurts because you feel every follicle dying,” she says. “It was pretty brutal.”
Before her diagnosis, Elwood-Smith had seen her local dragon boat team paddling in her home town of Wellington. After her treatment, she read about a dragon boat team for breast cancer survivors in a “CanTalk” newsletter from the Cancer Society.
Before then, Elwood-Smith’s sporting background was limited to playing netball when she was 12.
“You really couldn’t call me Sporty Spice. Sports were just never part of my interests. I was built for comfort, not for speed,” she says.
“But when I was starting to feel a bit better, I reached out to the CanSurvive dragon boat team in Wellington. I pictured heading out with all these other lovely ladies that had been through what I’d been through, and we would bemoan our fate, potter around and then jump out for a cup of tea and a glass of wine.
“So imagine my surprise when it was actually a little more athletic than that. Having done it for the last 17 years, we’ve essentially just got better and better, and breast cancer paddling has just climbed through the levels.”
Dragon boat paddling for breast cancer survivors began at the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, in 1996, when exercise physiologist Dr Don McKenzie challenged the thinking that women treated for breast cancer should avoid rigorous upper body exercise for fear of developing lymphoedema, a debilitating and chronic side-effect of treatment.
He developed a programme to determine the impact of exercise on breast cancer survivors, and chose dragon boat paddling because of its strenuous, repetitive upper body exercise.
He trained 24 breast cancer volunteers in a gym for three months, introduced them to dragon boats and taught them paddling techniques. At the end of the trial, none of the volunteers had lymphoedema. Not only that, they were fitter, healthier and happier.
They loved the camaraderie and support of their fellow paddlers. They realised the sport could become a means of raising breast cancer awareness and show that survivors could lead normal lives.
One of the most striking things she’s noticed since joining the CanSurvive club is the age range of the breast cancer crew. Not only was she the youngest when she came on board, but they’ve had women paddling at 80.
“I love that you can’t complain that you’ve had breast cancer because so has everybody else. You can’t complain that you’re too old because the people all around you are older than you,” Elwood-Smith says.
In 2010, the club decided to train and fundraise towards the 2014 International Breast Cancer Paddlers Commission festival in Florida – an event held every four years. The club of 20 paddlers joined 90 teams from around the world.
“We had one goal. Don’t come last,” Elwood-Smith says. They need not have worried – making it into the final eight.
“I’ve done other things since then, but it’s probably still the most memorable experience of my life. Everyone else had turned up in pink and we’d turned up in black and silver, so we stood out right from the get-go. They named us the ‘feisty bunch of women from New Zealand’. We just dug in and we finished third.”
That gave the club a taster, to go on to the 2018 edition in Florence where they finished second to a Canadian team.
Fundraising over the years has been through grants and sponsorship, to high teas, raffles, jigsaw puzzling events, and putting together their own cookbooks and calendars. When they’re fundraising, a lot of women approach the crew and share their survival stories too.
“It also helps people who are also supporting other people,” Elwood-Smith says. “If I walked into a room with five people, at least one will know someone who’s gone through breast cancer.
“You need to have people to talk to and a big part for me has been about my positive journey. The fear is not necessarily your own.
“Sometimes when you’re telling family and friends they think it’s a death sentence and you end up managing their grief so that becomes a big part of it.”
The announcement of the breast cancer paddlers category at this year’s world championships gave Elwood-Smith and her club mates a new goal – but also other breast cancer crews from around the country. A challenging selection process followed with an on-the-water programme organised by the Black Dragons coaches.
To reach the necessary level of fitness, Elwood-Smith trained at the gym six days a week, sometimes twice a day. There were three weekend training camps at Lake Karapiro as the selected squad of 26 worked hard to gel on the water while getting to know each other off it.
Off the water, Elwood-Smith runs her own web design agency, Grow My Business – a business she started from her kitchen table.
“It’s about helping people and businesses grow,” she says.
“When you have something like breast cancer, it just changes your perspective on life. It’s not a dress rehearsal – it’s actually happening right now and you just need to grab it with both hands.”
This story was originally published at Newsroom.co.nz and is republished with permission.