Dragon Boat Race

My Breast Cancer Foundation Dragon Boat team raced in Singapore’s annual River Regatta today. We competed in two 300-meter races and came in last in both. But we had a great time doing it.

There were about sixty to seventy teams at the race, mostly with big, hulky guys or young twenty-somethings at the prime of their physical strength. We were a team of mostly 60-year-old grannies with missing breasts, chest muscles, lymph nodes, some with rheumatism that made it hard to get in and out of the boats. Obviously, we’re not in it to win it.

So why do we do this? Why do I do it? I think it’s important for people to see us out there. We turn heads. I hope we also change people’s preconceptions of what a cancer patient is. I want people to look at us and think, “Wow, look at those ladies with breast cancer. They’ll never win a race, but boy, have they got guts!”

And while most of the team are older ladies, I hope the handful of younger women like me make people think twice about whether cancer is only for old people. I want to be a walking billboard that says, “I’m young, strong, and healthy. If breast cancer can happen to me, it can happen to you, so DO THOSE BREAST SELF-EXAMS EVERY MONTH!”

One of the ladies on the team was only 26 when she found a lump in her breast. She found it while doing a self-exam, because 26 is too young for a mammogram or any other kind of diagnostic test. What a smart girl for finding her cancer herself instead of letting it grow inside her for years and years, only to find out at the age of 40 (the age mammograms are recommended) that she has LATE stage breast cancer. So if you’re in your twenties, keep this in mind if you ever find yourself thinking you’re too young for breast cancer.