By Adriana Ermter
In our monthly column, senior writer and editor Adriana Ermter shares her personal experiences with breast cancer.
Not long ago, I felt confident about my post-cancer status. Like I was finally rising above and beyond being just a breast cancer survivor. That I could actually do real-life things and shake off some of the lingering shadows. It felt good and empowering, and suddenly, I was ready to take on new challenges. So, I did, by swimming laps at the community centre pool. And boy, did I suck at it horribly.
Now, I realize a little background information is necessary here. I’m a lifelong swimmer and a former competitive artistic swimmer (formerly known as synchronized swimming). Years before my breast cancer diagnosis, I was also a certified, national level coach for the sport. I was good at it, too. But life got busy and I took a decades-long hiatus to focus on my career and stopped coaching. One day though, during my breast cancer treatment, as I lay on the couch feeling sick and depleted watching back-to-back episodes of a cheerleading TV show, I decided I wanted to coach again. Watching the cheer coach in action made me wistful for my past. I loved teaching athletes new skills that fuelled their confidence and built their self-esteem. Seeing the joy of accomplishment spread across their faces had meant everything to me back then and selfishly, I wanted to relive those experiences and do something that felt meaningful and purposeful again. So, I promised myself that as soon as I was well enough, I would look into coaching.
Getting back into coaching was shockingly easy. Getting up to speed on a sport that had drastically changed since I’d last dipped my foot into the water was not so smooth. My work was cut out for me. I took courses, then more courses, studied hundreds of videos, informally interviewed other coaches and was, at all times, 100 per cent transparent about my invisible disability of physical limitations and an impaired memory. My head coach was especially great. She knew I was on a steep learning curve and supported my every step. Now, I’m so happy to be coaching national level athletes again, learning as I go and loving every moment. My point: I understand the effort it takes to be good at a sport. So obviously, I didn’t think diving back into the pool again for my own training would be a snap.
When I first started swimming again, post cancer, I couldn’t manage 25 metres of front crawl—formerly my best and fastest stroke—without stopping to catch my breath. Panting, I’d roll onto my back halfway down the lane and lie there inhaling deeply before rolling back over and making my way to the other end of the pool. Despite undergoing physiotherapy and taking an adult “Learn to Swim” class to ensure my body could actually handle the movements, my body still betrayed me. My muscles ached, my lungs burned and I was exhausted. But it felt like joy.
Once I got into a rhythm at the pool, I began showing up for 6:30 a.m. lane swims, two to three times a week. I was (still am) ridiculously slow, but each time I slipped into the water, gratitude and an inner peace washed over me. After six months, I could finally swim 400 metres without pausing. Sure, radiation’s effect on my lungs meant I have to alternate between front crawl and back crawl to do it, but I didn’t care. I’d even given myself a goal: to take the National Lifeguard (NLS) course.
While I have zero aspirations to work as an actual lifeguard, as a part-time artistic swimming coach having this certification is a good thing. I knew it would be rigorous and difficult too, but I was ready. What I didn’t expect, however, was to feel powerless—that everything I’ve overcome would be erased with one person’s bias.
That person was the course instructor.
From his first words, it was clear that he had a mold of what a lifeguard “should” look like. I didn’t fit it. I was too old, too female, too unfit in his eyes. It didn’t matter that I was a certified national level coach or that I’d worked tirelessly to rebuild my strength. And he certainly didn’t care when I was transparent about my cancer journey and my knowledge that I would not pass the course’s mandatory 10-minute timeframe to complete the 400-meter swim (my timing was 11 minutes). I was there to participate and learn.
“Why are you bothering?” was his response, eyeing me up and down as I stood before him in my bathing suit, before telling me I was too old. That this course was too hard for someone “like me.” It was a waste of my time. That as an artistic swimming coach, I didn’t even need the certification.
I was stunned. I thought I’d left behind the days of being underestimated because of what cancer had done to my body. But here I was, feeling small and diminished all over again—not because of the disease this time, but because someone chose not to see my strength. His punitive and aggressive behaviour didn’t stop there. The environment he created was harsh and punishing. If any of us participants arrived less than 15 minutes early, we were locked out. He ignored the official course guidelines of 60 per cent water time and 40 per cent classroom time, pushing us to spend 85 per cent or more of each nine and a half hour-long day in the pool. The course became a test of endurance, not of learning. Teenage participants cried daily. Exhausted minors fell asleep on deck.
One afternoon, during a drill, the instructor told me to run on the wet pool deck. Against my better judgement I did, because it was easier than dealing with his cruelty, condescension and ostracism. I slipped and fell on the hard concrete right in front of him. He didn’t help. He didn’t even ask if I was okay until an hour later, when he casually asked if I needed a guard to look at me. I kept going. Bruised, sore, exhausted—but I stayed.
Later, in front of everyone, he made a comment about my body, telling the group not to choose me as a rescue partner because I’d be “too hard” to carry, insinuating that I am overweight. As his words hung in the air, my face burned with shame and anger as I thought about the Tamoxifen weight I still carry around. I’d been reduced to a punchline. Afterwards, when the instructor momentarily left the pool deck, three of the high school-aged women came up to me and apologized for his words, acknowledging that what he’d said wasn’t okay. Their kindness helped in the moment, but on the inside, I felt humiliated and unworthy. His words hit their mark.
I thought I’d healed from cancer’s psychological wounds but, clearly, I was wrong. The experience flooded me with too familiar feelings of being excluded from life, of having to watch from the sidelines as everyone else moved on, of questioning my ability to ever reclaim my life again. My cancer headspace was back, although ironically with less agency and control than when I’d actually been fighting the disease.
It took me some time to process my emotions and fully absorb the experience I’d had, but once the course ended, I wrote to the organization facilitating the course to share my story. I detailed everything—how unsafe, coercive and demoralizing the instructor had been. How he had ignored my vulnerability and punished me for it. How he failed to uphold even the most basic human values of inclusivity, safety and respect. I’m still waiting for a meaningful response. So far, all I’ve received is a brief note saying my feedback would be passed along to the instructor—along with a reprimand for taking too long to come forward with my comments.
Dealing with a cancer diagnosis is hard enough without having outside voices tear you down. The emotional scars, never mind the ever-present fear of a recurrence, cancer instils may be invisible, but its real. I thought I’d dealt with it, but the instructor’s words and actions reignited both. Rationally, I know this was just one man and he can’t define me, but...I have to remind myself of this often. It helps and I’m focusing on reshaping my self-perspective and rediscovering what I’m capable of. Yes, it sometimes feels a bit like being back at square one again—tentative, uncertain—but I know I can control the narrative and, hopefully, the outcome too.
Adriana Ermter is a multi award-winning writer and editor. Her work can be read in IN Magazine, Living Luxe, 29Secrets.com, RethinkBreastCancer.ca and AmongMen.com. The former Beauty Director for FASHION and Editor-in-Chief for Salon and Childview magazines lives in Toronto with her two very spoiled rescue cats, Murphy and Olive. You can follow Adriana on Instagram @AdrianaErmter.
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