Karen Pennell

For the first couple of years after my surgery, even with the compression sleeve, my arms kept getting bigger, bit-by-bit. The hospital measured my arms every six months, so I knew exactly how much they were increasing. Then I heard about dragon boating. In the spring of 2008, I joined the team and my arms have stopped getting bigger since then. Dragon boating has really helped. In fact, sometimes after practice or after a race, my arms actually decrease in size to the point where the sleeves get loose and fall down. Once when they fell down twice during a practice, team members joked ‘your lymphedema is cured!’

When our coach had those sessions on Thursday nights when we had to work really, really hard, I had the best sleeps of my life. On a timing drill, when we had to pause the oar in the air before hitting the water, my arm felt really good. At the festival we attended this summer in Peterborough, with six races in one day, my arms felt really, really good. Who knows how much of it is psychological. I do feel better after I’m out there. That mixture of friendship and exercise, it always makes me feel better.

*Some or all of the lymph nodes in the underarm are removed during breast cancer surgery to determine if the cancer has spread, and if so, to what extent. This helps determine what further treatment is needed. Radiation is an often-used treatment. Both can lead to lymphedema, a chronic swelling of the arm. A compression sleeve can help to keep the swelling down. Lymphedema is very uncomfortable and can lead to an uncontrolled infection in the affected limb. Survivors were typically told to limit upper body exercise. In 1996, Dr. Don McKenzie in Vancouver studied the effects of vigorous upper body exercise on lymphedema and found dragon boating helpful in prevention and relief of symptoms. The results were so positive that breast cancer survivors worldwide have enthusiastically embraced the sport.