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Denver Race for the Cure

Don't forget to mark your calendars for the 2005 Komen Denver Race For The Cure®. Sunday, October 2, 2005

Race for the Cure Group Photo

Colorado Retreat Pics!

 Check out the slide show from the CO1 retreat at the beautiful North Fork Guest Ranch in Shawnee.  Kris, Karen, Dana, Jean, Kathy, Pat, Elaine, and Priscilla - looks like a great weekend. We can’t wait to hear news from the CO2 retreat in September and CO3 in October!

North Fork Ranch, Colorado

“Women Cast Their Cares Away”

By Nicole Foy, Express-News Medical Writer

A cool morning breeze rustles the cypress trees as Jane Thomas casts into Joshua Creek. The long, neon-yellow line swooshes over her shoulder, loops back, then gently arcs before making a tiny splash near a pile of brush floating near the bank.

Quietly, Thomas waits. She watches the yellow strike indicator bobbing along the creek's gentle current. After a few minutes, she casts again. And again. Finally, after replacing her fly with a floating, hand-tied beetle, she gets a bite.

"Oh, set the hook! Raise the rod!" Thomas' casting instructor, Stacy Trimble, says excitedly. Trimble scrambles down the bank with a net to help bring up the catch, a small pumpkinseed hybrid. Thomas runs a finger along its brilliant orange belly. "How cute!" she says, posing for a quick picture. "But hurry, we have to get him back in the water. Do you think he's hurting?"

"Fish don't feel pain the way we feel pain as humans," Trimble reassures her as she slips the squirming pumpkinseed back into the creek. "It's hard for us to understand, because we have such clear responses to pain. But a fish's system is very different from ours."

 When you've gone through a year of breast cancer treatment as Thomas has, sensitivity to someone's pain, even if it's a fish, can come pretty naturally. But here, Thomas and the other 13 women fly-fishing amid the crystal-clear waters of Joshua Creek aren't consciously thinking about their own battles with breast cancer.

"I wanted something different to keep my mind off everything," Thomas says. "This whole (retreat) has been very positive < not too heavy like a (breast cancer) support group. We're all learning something new and having fun at the same time. Being out here (in nature) reminds you that all we can do is take each moment as it comes."

First Texas Retreat

It was truly magical! “I have worked in many groups before, but never have I seen a group of women, from so many different backgrounds and with not much prior knowledge of each other, come together and become such a cohesive unit so quickly. For me, this was quite impressive and it still gives me chill bumps when I reflect on the wonderful way we all worked together.”
 

Retreat Volunteer

Saturday Morning Group - Joshua Creek Ranch, Texas