What a difference a weekend makes when breast cancer survivors gather in a serene setting to fly fish. Through Casting for Recovery, women relax, forge new friendships and find support, all the while learning a new skill with physical and spiritual benefits.

Since 1996, the nonprofit organization has offered breast cancer survivors complimentary retreats at upscale resorts and lodges across the country. Fly fishing not only promotes a sense of calm and connection with the outdoors, but its techniques provide gentle exercise for joint and soft tissue mobility--key for women who may have undergone surgery. 

“Women walk in with heads drooping and shoulders forward and they leave rejuvenated,” said Seline Skoug, the program’s executive director. “After having a life-threatening illness, it’s energizing to learn something new. It takes your mind off your stress and brings you to beautiful places.”

Founded in 1996, Casting for Recovery was the inspiration of breast reconstructive surgeon Dr. Benita Walton of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, NH, and Gwenn Perkins, a fly-fishing instructor for the Orvis Co. Fly-fishing uses a very gentle casting motion similar to exercise prescribed after surgery.

“The activity of casting is quite an act of motion,” said Walton. “It moves the entire arm and in some ways the whole body.” 

Casting for Recovery will hold 30 retreats this year in 22 states as well as Canada. Each retreat is limited to 14 women because an intimate group helps foster friendship, support and sharing. Participants are chosen randomly and are at all stages of treatment and recovery.

A retreat will be held at Ranch Rudolph in Traverse City, Mich. from September 9-11, 2005, for women who live in Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Women must sign up by April 22 to be eligible for the random draw.

Each 2 ½ day retreat is staffed by female volunteer nurses, counselors and fly-fishing instructors. Lodging, food and clinics are all free of charge, except for transportation. A counselor and either a registered nurse, physical therapist or physician attend each retreat.

Pampering is part of the experience. “We don’t devote enough time to go away for the weekend and relax and make it about us,” said Skoug. 

This past August, Canada held its first Casting for Recovery retreat at Langdon Hall Country House Hotel and Spa in Cambridge, Ontario, a Relais & Chateux hotel, a global benchmark for international hotels. In between fly fishing, seven Canadian women and seven American women relaxed by the outdoor pool, took long walks on its trails, played billiards, and used Langdon Hall’s spa.

Rhoda Kay, 58, of Minneapolis, attended the Langdon Hall retreat with her two sisters-in-law, breast cancer survivors as well. “When we first arrived, everybody was very nervous and quiet about discussing things so personal with a group,” she said. 

“My sisters-in-law and I were so uncomfortable that first night we considered leaving,” Kay said. “But the facilitator at the welcome dinner was excellent and we all ended up talking about our situations.” 

The next day the women practiced casting on the vast lawns at Langdon Hall. “It was a hoot and a holler,” Kay said. “We had the best time pretending we were catching fish in the yard. The instructors were amazing in their knowledge and dealing with us, our emotional baggage and everything else.”

That night the magic happened. “We really let loose,” Kay said. “We said things we’d been holding onto for a very long time, about how breast cancer changes your life forever. For example, I was really tired of people saying, ‘If you have to be bald, you have such a nice head.’ It’s not a compliment. These women understood what I meant.”

On Sunday, the women dressed in their fly fishing gear and went fishing. “We each had our own instructor and everybody caught a fish,” Kay said. “Everybody benefited in some way. Being changed doesn’t mean you can’t be normal and be successful at new things.”

Casting for Recovery is working with a doctoral candidate at Yeshiva University in New York to measure the psychosocial effects of retreats, said Skoug. Preliminary data show a decrease in depression immediately following the retreat that lasts for six months. Research has also found a significant increase in personal growth for those experiencing a stressful or traumatic situation, she said.

 “It amazes me to see the change,” said Skoug. “One woman said during a retreat, ‘This is the first time in five years I haven’t thought about my cancer.’ A lot of sharing goes on. We hear women ask each other, ‘Did your doctor to say to eat seaweed, or soy?’” 

Fly fishing was a big draw for Bea Cornelissen-Amendt, 63, who attended a retreat in Traverse City, Mich, three years ago. The Park Ridge woman is an eight-year breast cancer survivor. “The retreat was incredible,” she said. “I gave up bowling because of the arm movement required, but I wondered if I could cast with a fly rod.”

She certainly could. “Fly-fishing is an art form,” Cornelissen-Amendt said. “You have to have patience. Everything is in slow motion while casting. You have to learn to read the stream. What does that ripple mean? Is a trout in there?”

She also made lasting friendships. “When we sat around and talked we didn’t know if we were going to make it or not but we didn’t care,” she said. “We all loved nature. Our minds were completely taken off this disease called cancer. It’s not the cancer that kills you; it’s the mind games that bring on stress.”  

For more information or to register for a retreat, visit http://www.castingforrecovery.org/.

By Terri Yablonsky Stat
Special to the Tribune