Tim Harmon
The last few years have been a roller-coaster ride for Bif Naked. After two years of touring, TV work and datelessness following her 2005 album Superbeautifulmonster, the Vancouver-based alt-rock singer-songwriter — whose real name is Beth Walker — met and married her husband, sportswriter Ian Walker, in an eight-month span in 2007. Less than a week after returning from their honeymoon, she discovered a lump on her breast. Two weeks later, she was having a lumpectomy. Two weeks after that, she began chemotherapy.
When a doctor’s secretary told her about the CARE (Combined Aerobics and Resistance Exercise) trial at the University of British Columbia (UBC), she signed up immediately. Researchers at UBC’s School of Human Kinetics were studying how exercise affects the lives of breast-cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. Conventional medicine advises patients to conserve their energy during treatment, while the CARE trial turns this wisdom on its head.
With access to a gym, where she could “take her wig off,” and a prescribed exercise routine, Walker credits CARE with getting her through the dark days of treatment.
A year later, Bif Naked is back on the road, touring and promoting her latest album, The Promise. But that’s not all she’s promoting. The CARE trial opened her eyes to the healing powers of exercise, and she wants to see “cancer gyms” built for all cancer patients and exercise become part of standard chemotherapy care.
InnovationCanada.ca (IC): When you found out about the CARE trial, did you have any idea you would feel so passionately about it?
Bif Naked (BN): No — absolutely not. I was already a fitness girl. It was a no-brainer. But if you’ve never been through cancer treatment, you have no basis for comparison. No one could have told me how I would feel. And I felt different after every chemo. It was debilitating for me. I don’t know how chemo would have gone for me had I not had that trial to go to three times a week. I was a gym rat, but I wouldn’t have gone to my gym, even though I was very comfortable there. During chemotherapy, believe me, I didn’t miss a beat. I still went to the grocery store, and I still made a record while I was doing it, but I wouldn’t have gone to a gym. I wouldn’t have felt comfortable.
IC: What about for the other women?
BN: It’s overwhelming for most patients when they get a cancer diagnosis. For a 50-year-old who’s never exercised, it’s going to be a little daunting, and she will not sign up. I can’t imagine how isolating it would have been for the women who didn’t sign up. I can’t even describe to you all the different walks of life of women who never exercised who all now have a love of physical exertion, who have a joy of yoga and walking. It really changed a lot of people’s perspectives.
IC: And it sounds as though you’ve formed a bond with the other women in the program.
BN: Absolutely. It’s like we’re army buddies. We’ve been in the trenches together. Everyone sees one another jaundiced. Bald. Starting to . . . fade. We could really relate to each other and have discussions while working out together and getting sweaty. It was a safe environment that was all based around feeling good, feeling empowered, feeling a sense of fellowship.
IC: How else did the program help?
BN: I know the physiological benefits from the exercise trial, but it was truly beneficial on so many levels. Psychologically. Socially. Emotionally. All those things add up to the same answer for me. I can’t imagine people going through cancer treatment without these things available to them.
IC: How important was the group atmosphere?
BN: We already know that exercise strengthens the immune system, strengthens all your cells, enables you to get through your treatment alive, number one, and prevents a recurrence. Other things that boost immunity are laughter, sharing, non-isolation and helping each other avoid depression. It’s all so integral.
IC: With this trial now a year behind you, how are you feeling?
BN: I feel great. But I always say that I’m a ham. I’m always going to be the class clown and the cheerleader. It’s just part of how God made me. So that experience for me was probably a little different than what it might have been for other people. But I know what almost all the other women in the study are doing now. They’re in yoga classes. They’re members of a gym. They’re in a walking group. And I know — it’s statistically proven — they’re going to prevent recurrences as a result of this new-found lifestyle. It’s really remarkable that such a simple study would have such a big impact.
