Local woman ‘plowed through’ to beat cancer

Published 1:00 am Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Tracey Schmidt decided at 40 to take her fitness into her own hands. To just, as they say in fitness circles, go for it.

The next seven years saw her joining the wheeled ranks of local cycling guru Steve Rhoades; achieving master swimmer status; strapping on downhill and cross-country skis; and picking up oars as part of the Bainbridge Island Rowing Club.

She also joined the staff of the local chapter of Weight Watchers, witnessing first-hand the transformations that are possible when people make health and well-being a top priority.

“It’s so critical just to take care of yourself, for who knows what,” she said.

In January 2007, that “who knows what” surfaced, when a routine mammogram revealed an abnormality that was eventually diagnosed as cancerous that April.

After the diagnosis, one of the people Schmidt turned to for insight was Lisa Lund, a friend through the Island Fitness community who at the time was in the ending stages of her own breast cancer treatment.

“I was actually calling Lisa to ask about her path,” Schmidt said. “And she said, ‘You’re a rower!’”

Lund fixed on that fact because she and island photographer Pete Saloutos were in the process of planning and shooting a cancer benefit calendar featuring fit women engaged in their chosen sports, baring it all for the cause.

Schmidt said sure.

On the one hand, she was reeling from her diagnosis, and she’d never enjoyed the spotlight – she was always the one taking the photos in order to avoid being in them.

On the other hand, there was a bigger picture to consider.

“So there was my moment of entertaining the Rich Passage homeowners for three mornings,” she said.

Luckily her mom, whose beach she launched from, helped inform the neighbors. Once they were in on the project, they were behind it. Until then, Schmidt said, they were asking ‘What’s with the naked lady in the boat?’”

Between the initial mammogram in January and the firm diagnosis in April came a “long, dark time” for Schmidt that included a battery of tests and more ways to manipulate her chest than she thought possible.

The diagnosis was a relief because finally, she had “something to push against.”

“Other than having the cancer, I was pretty much a horse,” she said. “And boy, did that come in handy, having to plow through.”

Schmidt’s husband was out to sea for part of the ordeal, but she refused to isolate herself, always making sure she had someone to go along to appointments and tests with her. She found for the first time in her life that she, who considered herself the perpetual organizer and in-control caretaker, welcomed help.

“There’s something in life that teaches you to receive, as well,” she said.

Schmidt opted for a double mastectomy, what she calls an aggressive course but the one that made sense for her. On the morning of her surgery on June 1, her rowing mates – she refers to them as her “bosom buddies” – found out which ferry she was taking. She figures they must have been in cahoots with the ferry captain because there they were, rowing right alongside the boat, with a teddy bear sitting in her seat on the scull.

“Then you know you’re going to be okay, when you’re surrounded,” she said.

Schmidt’s daughter’s lacrosse team devised its own sisterhood-saturated prescription, wearing bracelets for her and inscribing her initials on their sticks. They also put together a Race for the Cure team for the annual Susan G. Komen benefit race in Seattle, an event Schmidt herself participated in that year, too, even though it was just two weeks after her surgery.

She said it was strange for the first time to be wearing a pink survivor’s shirt, rather than a white supporter’s shirt. But seeing all four lanes of Seattle’s Alaskan Way viaduct filled with runners was humbling, awe-inspiring, and something that no one could come away from unchanged.

Schmidt will be out of town for this year’s race on June 21, but she’ll don her pink shirt the day beforehand and do her own version of the walk.

She’ll be low-key about it, but from now on she’s also okay with stepping out of the crowd from time to time, to offer support to others.

“How much I got out of support is what I want to give back,” she said.