Seabrook Cancer Survivors

Saturday, May 7^th, was a beautiful day, sunny and warm with a good breeze that cooled off what might otherwise have been a real hot one. Kathy Maher, Sue Dostal and I were headed into Charleston early in the morning to watch something we had never seen before. We were going to the Dragon Boat Charleston race, held in Brittlebank Park on the Ashley River. We were not just going to watch the race, however. We were going to cheer on five Seabrookers who were participating in the race.

We were not prepared for the size of the crowd. Parking was a serious problem. Kathy went to find parking, while Sue and I tried to find our friends, which turned out to be quite a challenge. We knew our Seabrook participants were on a team called “The Eye of the Dragon,” but there were tents everywhere. The food industry was also out in droves, with a wide variety of offerings ranging from hot dogs to Thai food. Luckily Sue spotted the team sweatshirt so we found their tent at last.

The five Seabrook participants were Betty Maher, Susan Colatsky, Tori Langen, Lisa Hillman and Lois Rinehimer. These ladies have 2 things in common: 1) they were all participating in the Dragon Boat race for the first time and 2) they are all cancer survivors.

The Dragon Boat Festival races four divisions; Mixed (must have at least eight women), Women’s, Men’s and Cancer survivors. Charleston has been hosting the festival since 2003. There were 62 boats in this race and each boat races at least twice. There are twenty paddlers in each boat, one steersman and a drummer. The races last anywhere from one to one and a half minutes. Each boat raises money so that the cancer survivors can participate without cost and the fundraising this year reached a high of $186,000 and still counting.

Lisa Hillman was one of the participants. She said the Dragon Boat Race gave her an entirely new perspective on life. She knew one of the five women well at the start, but the five formed a bond on their weekly trips to Charleston to train for the race. There are eight training sessions all of one hour. Lisa felt that working as a team in the peace of the river was relaxing as well as challenging.

Each woman had a different story to tell. Their length of cancer survivorship ranges from twenty-five years to very recent. Tory Langen was diagnosed with cancer twenty-five years ago when such a diagnosis was regarded as a death knell. Tory says she wanted to support the other women whose cancers were more recent, but she loved being with these women and thinks she might participate in the race next year.

Betty Maher said they all plan to go to the graduation to be held next Wednesday, May 18^th. She commented that each cancer survivor has a graduation ceremony when they finish with chemotherapy, so she wondered if this graduation exercise would play off that model.

For those of us enjoying looking on at the race, it gave us great pleasure to see neighbors and friends who have been through the cancer experience finding such joy in an activity, knowing what they had all been through.

When Kathy, Sue and I got back in the car to head home, we felt good about being able to cheer on our amazing friends and cancer survivors.

-Barbara Burgess, Tidelines Staff Writer