Lynn, from Murray Bridge in South Australia, said dragon boat racing was “as magical and peaceful sport but it’s also bloody hard work”.

Lynn’s post-cancer zest for life saw her win the 2012 Every Generation Positive Ageing Physical Activity Award category.

The event recognises South Australian individuals who demonstrate positive ageing and challenge the stereotypes of ageing.

Lynn received the honour for leading Pink Victory River Dragons - a team of breast cancer survivors from Sout Australia’ Murray Mallee region to a dragon boat racing event in June last year.

“The award was so good because it’s about our club not just me. I just helped set it up,” she said modestly.

“These amazing women have such great talents and we have achieved so much because of what we have done together.”

When Lynn was first diagnosed with breast cancer, she was determined to tackle the illness head on with nothing but a positive attitude.

“I was diagnosed in 2002 just before my 50th birthday,” she said.

“I had a lumpectomy first of all and then six week of chemo and then eight weeks of radiotherapy at Flinders Medical Centre.”

The youngest of her four children was 14 at the time. “I think it must have been scary for them but I was so positive about it and getting through the treatment,” she said.

“Once you get through that - it’s then you start to think ‘well, what am I to do now?.”

Lynn said Flinders Medical Centre staff encouraged her to join an encore group which involved meeting with other cancer survivors through dance and aqua aerobics.

“Someone brought a video on dragon boat racing and we decided we would have a go. “So that’s where I helped in the setting up of a couple of clubs there.”

Lynn, with her husband, wasted no time in starting up a group now called ‘Pink Victory River Dragons’, starting with 10 members. It now has 25.

Last year, the women entered The First Survivor Race at the International Dragon Boat Racing in Borneo.

Lynn said the group supports all cancer survivors and together they work to promote awareness and early detection.

“It didn’t seem fair that just because someone didn’t have breast cancer they couldn’t be with us.”

Dragon boat racing is a team paddling sport using a watercraft. It’s links to cancer survivors came about after a doctor from Vancouver performed a physical experiment on women looking at the effects of lymphedema.

“Some women get lymphedema, which is that soreness and swelling of the arm because of fluid build up after surgery. Once you get it, it doesn’t go away easily”.

Women who paddled, she said, found that the swelling reduced – in some cases dramatically – the impact of the lymphedema.

“It puts down the myth that you shouldn’t be doing this. While you shouldn’t lift heavy things, it’s the physical rhythm of rowing in the boat that helps,” Lynn said.

Prior to cancer, Lynn’s overseas visits were rare, now she is a frequent traveller through dragon boat racing, visiting Rome, Kuala Lumpur, Cape Town  and Singapore, among other places.

“In KL we went to the Australian Embassy and through the media we made a promise to help the girls there set up a team. Then an Australia girl who has lived there for 35 years she came over and came out with us at West Lakes (South Africa) and we hooked up us as sisters in this cause. We are great friends now and she is the Pink manager in KL,” Lynn said.

When Lynn’s children first discovered she was entering dragon boat racing they thought nicknamed her the ‘dragon lady’.

Lynn said cancer had taught her to live life now and not wait until retirement. “It’s also given me the opportunity to change people’s lives and create more awareness and that’s a good feeling”.

*This story was first published by Fairfax Regional Media in November, 2012