If you’ve felt that disconnect when getting moving again after your cancer treatment — your heart wants you to be where you were before, your head has reservations about getting started, but your body is like, “Hey! Kinda been through some stuff over here!” — and feeling frustrated that exercise doesn’t look like you thought it would, then you’re going to love this month’s series on fitness in survivorship. Over the next 4 weeks I’m going to introduce you to some great options to get moving again that you may not have even considered, and flipping the idea of exercise from something daunting to something fun that you want to come back to again and again.

On today’s episode, I’m excited to introduce Wendy Gawlik, the Regional Program Manager for Casting for Recovery. A breast cancer survivor herself, she found so much support as well as a new love of fly fishing when she attended the retreat as a participant, and fell in love with it so much that she now works for the company and is passionate about bringing this experience to other breast cancer survivors (at no cost to them! She and her colleagues work tirelessly to fundraise and make this a free opportunity for those who want to attend.)

We’re exploring:

• The anxiety Wendy felt from age 20 having benign but lumpy breasts with a family history of breast cancer and abnormal but benign mammograms time and time again
• How she handled the eventual diagnosis of breast cancer after yet another call back from her mammogram at age 51
• Why all surgeons are not created equal and why it’s so important to work with one who is a good fit for YOU
• Wendy and my experience with the frequent “because of your age” statement during treatment
• The side effects of Tamoxifen (hello hot flashes!) and the “miracle drug” that helped her through them
• Dealing with fear of recurrence during survivorship
• The importance of support after cancer treatment; whether that comes from a support group, a Facebook group, a retreat, or somewhere else
• All the details of the Casting for Recovery retreats and alumni events!