By Colleen Weinkam
From SmartHealthToday
On Saturday, Sept. 12, hundreds of people from around the region will participate in a sport that’s more than 2,500 years old, all to support breast health awareness.
The sixth annual Kentucky Dragon Boat Festival at A.J. Jolly Park in Alexandria will pit more than 20 dragon boat teams against one another to raise money for breast cancer research and prevention, and, for the first time in its history, be run entirely by breast cancer survivors.
Dragon boating is the oldest continuously raced sport in the world, and the fastest growing in America. Teams of 18 to 20 individual race by paddling in a 57-foot-long canoe with a carved dragon head and tail.
Fifteen-year breast cancer survivor Janet Burris has been a member of the Kentucky Thorough-Breasts – Kentucky’s first dragon boat team – since it was formed in 2008. The 64-year-old Erlanger resident developed lymphedema, an accumulation of protein-rich fluid in the tissue spaces under the skin, in her left arm a short time after undergoing mastectomy surgery.
She said the benefits of rowing have helped her manage her lymphedema, which is incurable, enough so that she no longer has to wear a compression sleeve on her arm.
“I had to wear a compression garment on my arm and hand for 10 years because of the swelling,” Burris said, “but I don’t need it anymore.”
“Lymphedema can be a side effect of breast cancer surgery and radiation therapy,” said Lynne Daley, a physical therapist and certified lymphedema therapist with St. Elizabeth Healthcare. Rowing can help lymphedema because pumping the muscles helps stagnant lymph fluids flow and maintains or restores a range of motion that might have been limited due to breast cancer surgery.
St. Elizabeth Healthcare has served as presenting sponsor of the Kentucky Dragon Boat Festival since it began in 2009.
A portion of the proceeds from the festival benefit the St. Elizabeth’s Women’s Wellness Centers.
For more information on the Kentucky Dragon Boat Festival, visit http://p4ca.org/.
SmartHealthToday is a service of St. Elizabeth Healthcare. You may sign up for the newsletter online.