Vol. 24, Issue 5, Sept. 10, 2026

Over my twenty-eight years of vetting breast cancer survivor speakers I’ve learned this: there’s no one way to walk through breast cancer, and there’s no one way to walk out the other side of it either.

I’ve seen it from many angles by now. Comedians Tracy DeGraaf and Ophira Eisenberg turn treatment into material that has whole ballrooms laughing through tears. Theresa Rhyne wrote and speaks from the heart about the cancer she and her beagle fought side by side. Dr. Sheri Prentiss  and nurse Hollye Jacobs both knew this disease from the healthcare side of the bed long before they learned new things about it from the patient’s side. Sarah McDonald brought the same instincts that built her corporate career to a story that had nothing to do with quarterly numbers.

Every one of them found her own way through — and every one of them tells it differently.

In this issue and the next, I want to introduce you to two more women who found their way through via exercise — Jacquelyn Fletcher Johnson, who found hers in a dragon boat, and Melanie Nix, who’s finding hers mile by mile on a running trail. Same medicine, two completely different prescriptions. We’ll start with Jacquelyn today and come back for Melanie next issue.

Before I get to her story, here’s something I didn’t fully appreciate until I looked at the research — exercise isn’t just something survivors do to feel  better. The research says it changes outcomes. Women who stay active after a breast cancer diagnosis show real drops in recurrence and in mortality — one review found regular exercisers had 24% fewer recurrences and 34% fewer deaths from the disease. And it doesn’t take marathon training to get there. One 2025 study found that for postmenopausal cancer survivors just walking 5,000 to 6,000 steps a day cut their risk of dying by 40%.

Exercise also helps alleviate the everyday misery of treatment — the fatigue, the anxiety, the joint pain, the sleepless nights. So when I tell you Jacquelyn found her healing at the end of a paddle, I mean that literally, not just poetically.

 

Jacquelyn Fletcher Johnson

Lead Like a Dragon: Harness the Power of Trust

Jacquelyn came out of treatment looking, she says, for a way to rebuild her strength and reconnect with her body.

“In fall of 2020, I was coming out of cancer treatment, and I could not even walk to the mailbox,” she told me. ”I had been an athlete for much of my life, and suddenly I could not walk to the mailbox. Then I heard about this group called the Dragon Divas, a group of breast cancer survivors who race dragon boats.

“Dragon boat racing is this rare ancient practice from of China; it’s about 3,000 years old,” she continued. Dragon boats are large, canoe-shaped vessels. Each boat carries twenty paddlers, and it has a steerer at the rear using a long oar. At the front, a drummer keeps the rhythm for the paddlers. It’s a sprint sport, so it’s incredibly difficult.”

Then she found out that they were planning to go to New Zealand to compete in 2023.

“I thought, I have no idea what this is, but I’m going to join this team.  And when I did, I started to get my body back, started to rehab. But I was getting other things through this experience too – support, and  community.”

She had no idea, stepping in, that the boat would end up teaching her more about courage, resilience, leadership, and community than almost anything else in her life ever had.

There’s a piece of medical history behind that boat that I didn’t know until recently. For most of the twentieth century, doctors who were treating women who’d had lymph nodes removed told them to avoid vigorous arm exercise, out of fear it would trigger lymphedema — the painful swelling that so many survivors live with.

Women were told to skip raking leaves. Even to skip chopping vegetables. Then in 1996, a Canadian sports medicine physician named Don McKenzie decided to test that assumption instead of just repeating it. He put twenty-four breast cancer survivors in a dragon boat and ran them through months of some of the most vigorous upper-body training he could design. And they responded as he had hoped.

Not one of them developed lymphedema. His study didn’t just clear women to move their arms again — it suggested that the moving may be part of what protects them, by improving range of motion, rebuilding muscle, and helping their bodies pump lymph fluid the way it’s supposed to. The results achieved by that original team, which they called Abreast in a Boat, has inspired others, who have formed survivor dragon boat crews all over the world.

Since then Jacquelyn and her crew have won several gold medals around the world, and what she’ll tell you is that being in the boat has taught her something no solo workout could have: you don’t have to feel fearless to move forward, and you don’t have to do hard things alone. Now, as a keynote speaker, executive coach, and founder of The Gateway Project, she has made that the throughline of her presentations.

In her corporate keynote, “Lead Like a Dragon: Harness the Power of Trust,” she takes that lesson straight to corporate leaders — a leader who overexerts instead of aligning with their team, she tells them, creates resistance instead of momentum, which slows progress, disengages teams, and increases burnout. She learned those lessons firsthand in the boat, where synchronization, not raw effort, wins the race. When one paddler pulls too hard (or another not hard enough), the boat veers off course, forcing the steerer to use her oar to fight the imbalance, and that slows the boat down.

And in “Live Like a Dragon: Navigating Life After Cancer,” she brings that same fire to audiences of fellow survivors. She inspires them by sharing how the heat of a diagnosis and treatment can become fuel for recovery instead of just something to get through – and how each survivor can shift out of survival mode and into showing up fully in her one glorious and precious life.

You can read more about Jacquelyn, see her full list of speaking topics, and check her availability here.

Next issue, I’ll bring you Melanie Nix, whose recovery took a very different shape — on foot instead of on the water. Same idea, different medicine, and I can’t wait to share her story with you too.

Until next time, take care of yourself for your well being and those you love.

Barbara

P.S. If Jacquelyn’s story has you thinking about your next event for breast cancer awareness or for survivors, give me a call at 503-699-5031 or drop me a line at barbara@speakwellbeing.com. It’s not too late to schedule a virtual ERG program for Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October. I’d love to talk about whether Jacquelyn — or Melanie, once you’ve met her too — might be the right fit.

For Your Well Being is published with the intention of bringing you insider speaker reports, exclusive stories about special events around the country, meeting planner tips, and fun stuff from the worlds of health and well-being. Be well and be in the know!

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