Touched by cancer, Minnesota’s ‘Dragon Divas’ find power paddling as one
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When Dr. Laure Waschbusch turned 40, she got her first mammogram. She watched the technician do the ultrasound, and she saw it — breast cancer.
“I was watching the ultrasound, and then I saw it. I said to the tech, ‘Oh, that’s not great,’ and she’s like, ‘Well, I’ll have to have the doctor talk to you.’ I know doctor-speak. It wasn’t good.”
The mammogram that day in 2006 led to a double mastectomy, three months of chemotherapy and a year of the anti-cancer drug Herceptin.
Eventually, she got back to work and things got busy, but she still felt off track and in need of a way to restore a normal rhythm to her life. When some co-workers who were also survivors told her about their dragon boat racing team, Dragon Divas, she thought she would give it a try.
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She didn’t expect it to change her life.
“It makes you feel strong. It makes you feel like you are normal and you can do anything anybody else who hasn’t had cancer can do,” she said. “I get to experience the joy of survivorship on the boats and see people thrive with this disease.”
For many Minnesotans, dragon boat racing is a fun way to enjoy the water and form new friendships. But for more than 80 women in the Twin Cities who've survived cancer, it runs much deeper. They've forged a sisterhood that’s helped to heal them physically and emotionally.
Waschbusch’s story follows the same path as many members of the Dragon Divas — a terrifying diagnosis, a brochure in a cancer center, a friend of a friend forwarding an email, a chance to try something you thought your body could never do after fighting cancer.
The team launched in St. Paul in 2006 with eight survivors. Now, there are more than 80 women ranging in age from mid-30s to early-80s.
Jennifer Wall, 55, said cancer made her feel like her body had failed her. On the dragon boat, she tapped a well of strength.
“I did not feel amazing, I did not feel empowered, but I needed to try this,” she said of dragon boating. “I had every reason not to be interested in it. And the first few practices were hard — I couldn’t figure out how to move my body. But I have become so proud of my body and the fact that I did not give up.”
While the members all have cancer in common, they mostly aren’t talking about it. It is more about what is left unsaid.
“As much as your family and friends can support you, they don’t know what it is like,” Waschbusch said. “They didn’t sit in the doctors’ office and get told they have cancer. It’s a different level of understanding.”
Waschbusch said when the Dragon Divas are on the water, nothing else matters.
‘Same goal: Moving the boat’
Dragon boating originated in China thousands of years ago. A crew of paddlers, a drummer and a steer person race in the long, canoe-like boats.
In 1996, University of British Columbia researcher Donald McKenzie tested how breast cancer survivors would react to strenuous activity of the upper body. At the time, many survivors were told to reduce movement so they did not develop lymphedema, which the National Cancer Institute describes as swelling caused by a buildup of lymph fluid in the body between the skin and muscle.
McKenzie studied 24 survivors before and after six months of strength training and dragon boating, and none of them developed lymphedema. He also found increased exercise made the cancer less likely to reoccur.
His work led to the first team, Abreast in a Boat, with the women training to paddle in a festival in Vancouver, British Columbia. The concept spread from there across the globe. There are currently more than 260 teams in the world, with more than 50 in the United States.
In St. Paul, Anna Heinzerling, 35, is the youngest member of the Dragon Divas. She was diagnosed when she was 32. Before breast cancer, she was a runner. She assumed her body would bounce back afterwards, but that wasn’t the case.
She wanted to find a new way to move her body that would help her chances at not slipping into remission. What she was not expecting was to make 80 new friends.
On bad days — a family conflict or a cancer scare — the Divas, she said, lift each other up.
“During cancer treatment you think more about death than life. How long do you have left? Being out on the water gives you a lot of life,” Heinzerling said. “I feel more alive. You’re on the water, in nature, with a group of people who have all been through a similar thing, but we are all going toward the same goal — moving the boat.”
On a recent July day, the Dragon Festival returned to Lake Phalen in St. Paul for the first time since 2019. The divas compete in several races through the summer, but it was the first time in a while a race was so close to home.
The two teams, Hope and Courage, came in third place and ninth. Families of the divas watched and cheered, some held signs saying “My mom is a warrior.”
Having family there to watch the races is the most important thing for many of the Dragon Divas. They can show the people they love that they’re strong and competitive, virtues they thought their diagnoses would take away.
“The cancer is put aside — I’m at peace with everything,” said Dragon Diva Donna Jensen, 70. “I’m grateful. You cannot go back to what you were before, but maybe you can do something even better.”
Editor’s note: Mayo Clinic supports starting mammograms at age 40. It is recommended to start self-breast exams at 20. The best time to perform a self-exam is once a month, the week after your period ends. Find more information at Mayo Clinic.