Erin Kennedy admits it sounds impossible. The British rowing cox says she started the season with nine rounds of chemotherapy and a double mastectomy. “I was 200 metres behind everyone.”
After 15 rounds of chemotherapy to remove a kidney bean-sized lump near the top of her left breast, Kennedy will make an incredible comeback at this week's European Championship in Slovenia.
She thinks the unknowns after the diagnosis were daunting. How will the chemotherapy medications affect her? Will she sail again? Her most distinct memory is agreeing to be hooked up to doxorubicin, the "red devil" breast cancer medication.
Kennedy recalls signing her consent-to-treatment form and reading every negative effect, from an itchy nose to death. Who knew nails could come off? Nose hair matters.
"My nose ran for three months." Kennedy, a double world champion, European champion, and world-record holder in the mixed coxed four, has been resolved to stay the goal-driven athlete after discovering the lump last year during a training camp.
Four days after her diagnosis, she led the PR3 mixed coxed four to World Cup gold in Belgrade. She visited British Rowing's Caversham headquarters to check in with teammates, ride alongside the boats on the Redgrave Pinsent Rowing Lake, and undertake low-level cardio during her first few months of treatment.
At the Tokyo Paralympics, Kennedy coaxed Britain's PR3Mix4 to gold."