Brian Shane

Staff Writer

Dawn Ament has been to Africa three times. She’s jumped out of a plane and navigated whitewater rapids on the Colorado River. She’s even making plans to climb the ruins of an ancient Mayan pyramid in Mexico.

“I have never been one to shy away from a good challenge and adventure,” she said.

But Dawn’s latest adventure is her scariest and most personal yet: after beating a breast cancer diagnosis five years ago, her doctors say the cancer has returned.

The place where she’s found a way to stay physically healthy and maintain a positive outlook, however, is a lot closer to home than any of her adventures: her local fitness center.

“I’ve gotten into lately doing a little bit of CrossFit type stuff – lifting and doing burpees and ridiculous things that a 70-year-old woman shouldn’t be doing,” she said. “But I do them anyway and that’s always been my way.”

Dawn goes every other day to Planet Fitness in West Ocean City, where she does yoga and stretching to accompany her cardio and weight training. In two years, she managed to shed 50 pounds off her 190-pound frame.

“I look in the mirror and I’m amazed,” she remarked. “I’m probably in better shape than I was in my 30s, as far as strength and all. And I was really strong back then.”

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Breast cancer will affect one in 8 women in the U.S in their lifetime, according to the National Breast Cancer Foundation.

But recent research offers some hope. It seems to indicate that exercise is a powerful way to ward off the effects of a cancer diagnosis.

Exercise may make chemotherapy more effective, in part by reducing levels of inflammation and encouraging the creation of new blood vessels, according to a report from the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

And, while cancer weakens the immune system, exercise strengthens it, boosting the circulation of immune cells that fight back against cancer, the report shows.

That study resulted from an analysis of more than 100 clinical trials that examined the link between exercise and cancer treatment. One outcome is helping patients coming out of surgery recover faster with fewer complications.

A Baltimore native who makes her home in Ocean Pines, Dawn said her journey toward a new outlook toward exercise began in 2018. After a routine mammogram, doctors found a malignant lump.

Radiation treatment was successful, even as Dawn continued to work as a cardiac electrophysiology nurse through the COVID-19 pandemic. She stayed cancer-free for five years.

But, earlier this year, another mammogram showed that the breast cancer had returned.

“I had to do radiation again, get started back on my oral chemo again. Then, they started looking at other things and found a lump in my abdomen,” she said. “It turned out I had cancer in my kidney, just to really make this an all-inclusive event. They had to remove the kidney.”

“That’s when I had a pretty significant boo-hoo,” she added. “Exercise helped me wih coping with everything, because I was just getting slammed. Every time I turned around, they kept finding something else.”

Still, she feels that her exercise did help in her recovery, both physically and mentally. She was back on her feet in a week after her nephrectomy.

At the gym, Dawn’s routine involves 45 minutes of cardio on a treadmill or elliptical, and then 15 minutes of lifting free weights. She’s been comforted by new friends at the gym who have guided her through her latest diagnosis. She calls them “my support team.”

That includes Andra McKown, who works at the fitness center front desk. She and Dawn have grown close over the last two years.

“Dawn was coming in a lot. I noticed a big change in her weight. I could tell she had been working out,” McKown said.

“Then one day I saw her in the bathroom, and she was crying. I asked her what was going on and if she was OK. She told me about her journey with cancer. I told her I’d pray for her. Since then, we’ve been friends, talking every day. She’s an inspiration to me,” she said.

Dawn will officially retire from nursing at the end of this year, a career that started when she was a teenage candy striper at Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore. Soon, she and her husband Larry will take a road trip to New Orleans and the Florida Keys.

And she still has those Mayan ruins on her to-do list.

 “I’ve always been pretty defiant – I spent Ocean’s Calling at the festival,” she said. “I refuse to stop living. And I think that’s my big rallying cry. Being part of this gym and being fit helps me be defiant in the face of this diagnosis.”