Help Tanya raise money

My mama used to call me her water baby. As a child, I could spend hours splashing, playing, and swimming in water, no matter what the weather. As a teen, I especially loved floating in the sea, that feeling of being held up by invisible hands. The freedom. Weightlessness. That beautiful lightness of being...

Fast forward to October 2020. The first pandemic year. While watching a delightful video featuring the giggling Morning Swimmers of Sandagerði (https://vimeo.com/299166692), who brave the frigid waters of the North Atlantic every morning for a little swim, I knew I had found the perfect antidote to pandemic loneliness! Dipping into the Salish Sea, rain, snow, or shine, became my new morning ritual and I have embraced the cold ever since!

My goodness, it is SO invigorating to slowly wade into the icy water, focusing purely on my breath, while everyday worries, stress, and pain simply float away. It is both calming and exhilarating, awakens all my senses, and makes me feel so happy to be alive!

Little did I know then, that my cold water swimming would help me pull through the worst experience of my life: losing Jimmie, my soulmate of 26 years, in August of 2021, after a mere 3-month battle with cancer. To top that off, just as I had finally managed to come up for air, I received my own diagnosis in October of 2022: stage 3 breast cancer. Pfff... I kept swimming though, every day, with my incredible swim partners Pamela, Brian, Michelle, John, and Toby by my side, except when the roads were too icy, and when I needed surgery.

By that time, I had already decided to join SwimBowen in the summer of 2023. SwimBowen is a not-for-profit, 750m and 1500m open water swim event, conceived by wonderful Bowen Islander Mary Letson in 2018, inspired by her own experiences with cancer treatment. The fundraiser aims to provide Bowen Islanders with financial support for their self-care during active cancer treatment. These funds have helped my family stay afloat as well, for which I'm forever grateful! I knew SwimBowen would be a fantastic, positive goal to hang on to and instill strength and hope in my kids and in me...

I was back in the ocean 10 days after my double mastectomy and I swam as soon as I drove off the ferry after each and every chemotherapy treatment. After my 6 months of chemo ended at the end of June 2023, Pamela, Brian, and I swam the 750 meters during the SwimBowen event on July 15th! What an empowering experience to swim towards the finish line on the beach where my kids were waiting for me!!

I continued to swim during my radiation treatments, allowing the ocean to cool and soothe my skin, and I'm now swimming during my hormone therapy treatments. It hasn't been easy lately, since funny enough, I felt much stronger last year than I do now. The aftermath of chemo and radiation, as well as the prominent side effects of hormone therapy, have held me back a little, but I intend to keep swimming, for my kids and for myself, because I love to swim. At some point, I'll regain my strength, I know it.

I'm reminded of American poet Tyler Knott Gregson's inspiring quote: “Promise me you will not spend so much time treading water and trying to keep your head above the waves that you forget, truly forget, how much you have always loved to swim.”

So, powered by my love for swimming and my desire to give back to my community, I pledge to yet again take part in the heart-lifting SwimBowen event, happening on July 13th this year at Tunstall Bay Beach!

I'm hoping to raise $5,000 for the SwimBowen Cancer Care Fund. If you'd like to sponsor me with a donation to SwimBowen or help me with a share, that would be so great! Thank you from my heart for your support!!

With much love and heaps of gratitude to the amazing SwimBowen Society, Tanya