How to Ride a Dragon: Women with Breast Cancer Tell Their Stories

Pauline Carey is an actor, playwright, and fiction writer. She is the
author of Magic and What’s in a Name?

Eight years ago, a sports medicine research team at the University of
British Columbia encouraged a group of women with breast cancer to take
up dragon-boat racing, a competitive sport that originated in ancient
China. Today dragon boats containing 22 women, including a drummer and a
steersperson, meet across the country every summer to race against each
other. They call it “riding the dragon.” They also call it
“winning against Lane 11,” the lane taken by the dragon of cancer.

Michelle Tocher was a storyteller with a long-time interest in dragons
when her friend, Eleanor Nielsen, a breast cancer survivor, talked of
developing a book about dragon-boat racing. Together they planned this
book, in which 22 survivor women, urged to see their cancer as a dragon,
talk about their personal fights and accommodations with their own
particular dragons. Not all the dragons are malevolent; some bring
gifts, prodding the women to make changes in their lives.

Short excerpts from the women are interspersed with references to
dragon fables (particularly the legend of Beowulf, who overcame more
than one dragon in his life) and with words of wisdom from writers of
the past and the author herself. The last 11 pages contain Pearls of
Wisdom from the women who made the book possible.

Just as the dragon image helped the survivors to voice their struggle,
it also helps readers to work through the tears that come with a book on
this subject, and then the understanding of the different kinds of
strength it takes to fight the dragon and the remarkable victories that
may be achieved. With a deft interweaving of myth and reality, Tocher
has shown us how we may fight our own dragons, large or small.

The presentation of How to Ride a Dragon is very attractive, with
illustrations by Julie Dubuc, a foreword by Eleanor Nielsen, and an
eclectic bibliography that contains Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Proceeds from
the book will go to the Canadian Breast Cancer Research Initiative.