| Erie Times-News
Mary Law and Christi Seth have fly-fishing tales.
None involve the big one that got away.
Had the Erie County residents hooked but lost trophy-sized trout, it would have added to their memories from separate weekends at HomeWaters Club/River Village in the Huntingdon County community of Spruce Creek.
Memories each woman experienced as a breast cancer survivor.
Law, 55, and Seth, 35, tried their hands at fly fishing through the western Pennsylvania chapter of Casting for Recovery, a national nonprofit that offers no-cost retreat programs for women in all stages of breast cancer treatment and recovery.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that nearly 270,000 Americans, including 2,600 males, are diagnosed annually with breast cancer. Roughly 42,000 of those diagnosed die from its effects.
That Law and Seth are survivors is why neither fretted that they never caught and released a brown trout from the Little Juniata River, from whose shores Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Jimmy Carter once cast.
Law, a Harborcreek Township resident, said her 2017 retreat was everything she anticipated.
“It interested me because my father took us girls camping a lot and that’s when we learned to fly fish,” Law said. “It had been years since I’d done anything like that, but it still appealed to me. I applied to CfR (Casting for Recovery), but I was really surprised when I was notified that I’d won a spot.”
Seth was selected in 2019. Unlike Law, the Millcreek Township resident said her weekend was nothing like she expected.
It was much better.
“Honestly, I didn’t know enough about it,” Seth said. “I had this image that I was going to be at a Girl Scouts camp and we’d all be staying in bunk beds. I thought I would be gone for a weekend and be nothing but sad about having cancer. That wasn’t the kind of space I wanted to be.
“It ended up being totally different than that,” she said. “I have some fly-fishing friends who were pretty jealous about me being able to go there.”
Erika Clemmer can relate to Seth, Law and any other woman who’s been chosen for such a retreat.
Clemmer, 47, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2012. A year later, the Pittsburgh resident was one of the 14 women who found themselves in waders at HomeWaters.
Clemmer enjoyed her weekend so much that she volunteered for future retreats. She became an official CfR staff member in 2016, the same year she was put in charge of its western Pennsylvania chapter.
“Having gone through the program as a participant, and seeing how impactful it was for me, I was sort of eager to pay it forward,” Clemmer said. “I wanted to share my experience with other women who are going through breast cancer because I saw how much (the retreat) meant to me.”
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CfR is based in Bozeman, Montana, a city of 37,000 nestled amid the Rocky Mountains. “A River Runs Through It,” the 1992 Robert Redford-directed movie that showcased fly fishing, was filmed nearby.
However, the organization’s website mentions Manchester, Vermont, as its birthplace. It was founded in 1996 by Benita Walton, M.D., a breast reconstruction surgeon, and Gwenn Perkins, a professional casting instructor.
Walton and Perkins theorized that fly fishing was a way to physically and emotionally help breast cancer survivors with their recoveries.
They arranged for four retreats throughout New England in 1998. Since then, more than 10,000 women have participated in one of 60 annual outings now offered throughout the nation.
Another 60 were scheduled between April and November of this year. However, CfR officials were forced to cancel all retreats because of the OVID-19 pandemic.
Spruce Creek was to host western Pennsylvania participants for a 12th straight year. Eastern Pennsylvania participants were to cast on the grounds of the Skytop Lodge, located in the Pocono Mountains.
Weekend flies
Fly fishing is the culmination of a CfR weekend that goes by quickly, according to Clemmer.
“It felt like just as soon as you got there, it was over,” she said. “We got there Friday afternoon and left Sunday afternoon. You don’t actually get to fish until Sunday morning. Everything was built up to getting your line into the water and putting your new skills to the test.”
Learning basic techniques wasn’t the only activity ahead of casting for fish for the first time.
Besides the numerous instructors, at least one medical professional and psychological counselor are among the staff for every retreat. They were on hand more for the group therapy offered to participants.
Sometimes, the mood for such sessions is casual, according to Diane Buchbarker, M.D.
Other times, tears flow as readily as the nearby river.
Buchbarker is an oncology and hematology specialist for the Allegheny Health Network. The Pittsburgh physician has been involved in CfR’s past two camps at Spruce Creek, as well as other general ones for various types of cancer patients.
Regardless of the locale, Buchbarker said, the common denominator for such sessions is that they’re cathartic to various degrees for the participants.
“They mean well, but families can get tired of hearing about cancer from patients, and friends can’t always identify,” she said. “Here (at the retreat), they’ll have fresh ears and others with shared experiences. It is like having been in the military together.”
Diagnosis to survival
Law, a Harborcreek Youth Services employee, had her name drawn for the 2017 CfR retreat four years after she was diagnosed with stage one breast cancer.
“I was lucky it was caught early,” Law said. “I was going through a Facebook post that was talking about symptoms. I started feeling my chest after I started looking at that, and told my husband (Bill), ‘Honey, I think I felt a lump.’
“Without that Facebook post, I wouldn’t have been doing self-exams. I attribute that post to saving my life.”
Law opted for a double mastectomy as a precaution. Although she attributes occasional memory lapses to that surgery, it was a decision she doesn’t regret.
Seth was active in the 2019 CfR retreat at Spruce Creek. She received her breast cancer diagnosis in 2018.
“I was 38 weeks pregnant at the time with my son,” Seth said. “I was with my obstetrician when I mentioned to her that I’d noticed a mass pretty high in my chest. I honestly didn’t think anything of it, but she very quickly had me (examined).
“I was diagnosed within two weeks of me telling her.”
Seth underwent induced labor during her 39th week so she could begin radiation treatments as soon as possible.
Although labor lasted for nearly two days, Jaxson Seth was born healthy.
“It was definitely a lot to process,” Christi Seth said, “but I got a clean bill of health last November.”
Clemmer was diagnosed in 2011. She calls herself fortunate because a mammogram detected her breast cancer at an early stage.
Clemmer’s age at that time, 40, also was in her favor.
Still, each plus did little to blunt the original diagnosis.
“You hear those words — ‘You have breast cancer’ — and right away you start thinking of all the things you haven’t had a chance to do yet,” she said. “You think that life is going to come to an end as you know it. But you come to realize that women are surviving (breast cancer) much longer, and treatment is much more advanced now, so it’s not necessarily going to be the end.
“I hate to say I’m now cancer-free, but I consider myself back in the general population. I’m seven years out, knock on wood.”
Buchbarker is an outsider of sorts at such retreats. She’s neither a breast cancer survivor nor considers fishing a preferred outdoor activity.
“I wasn’t attracted to this because I fish,” Buchbarker said. “I joke that my job at these (retreats) is to make sure nobody gets a hook in their hand or breaks an ankle when they get their foot stuck under a rock in the river.”
What attracted Buchbarker was seeing CfR donations go to the people they were intended to aid, rather than to an organization.
Buchbarker also enjoys the retreats because they help her relate to patients beyond the sterile settings within hospitals.
“In my job, they’re always in the sick role,” she said. “They’re getting chemo and they’re not feeling good. Whereas when you see them in a weekend retreat like that, everybody is happy and relaxed. You get to see their real personalities.
“It’s nice to get to know people as people instead of as sick people.”
Gretchen Fay is one of the fly-fishing instructors Buchbarker met during a past retreat.
Fay, 64, is executive director for the Catholic Youth Association of Pittsburgh. She’s volunteered for every CfR retreat at Spruce Creek since the the first one in 2009.
Fay hasn’t had breast cancer. However, her older sister, Barbara Thompson, and her late parents, Louise and William Fay, all were diagnosed.
The Shaler resident said she schedules frequent breast cancer tests because of that hereditary trait.
Unlike Buchbarker, Fay is very much an outdoorsperson. She truly became hooked on fly fishing after she read the 2009 novel “Time is a River” by Mary Alice Monroe.
“It dealt with a woman who ran retreats in North Carolina for breast cancer survivors,” Fay said. “By the time I got to the end of the book, I realized that Casting for Recovery actually existed. I signed up online as a volunteer and I’ve been with them ever since.”
‘Way more than fishing’
Clemmer is unsure what the cancellation of this year’s Spruce Creek retreat will mean for the one scheduled there next summer.
It’s possible this year’s participants will at least be invited back, which would double the number to 28 if they all accept.
Clemmer said one of CfR’s goals is to train more volunteers for the events, which would allow such a total on a regular basis.
Women can attend as participants only once. That means Law and Seth would have to volunteer if they wish to spend another weekend at HomeWaters.
Neither expects to do so at present. Law, though, had advice for breast cancer survivors who are wary about such an unfamiliar experience.
“Apply,” she said. “They might think it’s just fishing, but I’d tell them, ‘It’s way more than fishing.’ It was so healing and therapeutic. It was unlike anything I’d ever been to before.”
Contact Mike Copper at mcopper@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ETNcopper.
More information
To apply as a participant or volunteer, to donate or support Casting for Recovery, or for more information, visit https://castingforrecovery.org/wpa/ or email cfrwpa@gmail.com. The 2021 retreats are tentatively scheduled for July 16-18 (apply by May 7) and Aug. 27-29 (apply by June 18).
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