How 'Nyad' Helped Me Survive Cancer

I first heard of Diana Nyad in 2011, still in my late twenties and living a laid-back, beery lifestyle in Austin, Texas.

My main concerns included the honky-tonk line-ups at local dives, spending weekends at various swimming holes, and surviving teaching high school English.

I found myself captivated, though, by the wild ambition of Nyad, a 62-year-old woman who was making headlines for attempting an open ocean, hundred-mile swim from Cuba to Florida—a feat she had first tried, and failed, when she was my age: 28.

On the day of her swim, I checked for progress updates every few hours. When I learned that Portuguese Man-of-War stings had cut short her journey, I was profoundly disappointed.

Now, Diana Nyad's story is out on Netflix, with two major Oscar nominations for this Sunday's 96th Academy Awards: Best Actress for Annette Bening as Nyad, and Best Supporting Actress for Jodie Foster as Nyad's longtime friend turned swim coach, Bonnie.

By the time the film released last fall, over a decade had passed since I had first followed Nyad's swim, and I'd experienced my own endurance journey: At age 37, one day after Austin went into pandemic lockdown, I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer.

At the moment of diagnosis, the pandemic dissolved into a blurry background, and I hyper-focused on survival. I was living with my dog in a one-bedroom bungalow; with pandemic protocols in place, I attended every appointment alone.

During all-day infusions, I meditated for hours, visualizing my body working with the toxic chemotherapy drugs that left me increasingly weak and nauseated.

That summer was blazing hot, made worse by the chemo-induced hot flashes that turned my bald head slick with sweat.

My 1940s bungalow was poorly insulated, the A/C window units only mildly effective—and the Texas swimming holes that had always made summers bearable were closed because of the pandemic.

When a friend offered me use of her parents' backyard pool, I cried with gratitude.

Each week, I'd ease my body into the cool water—a moment of relief from the endless side effects of chemotherapy. I'd swim slow, steady laps, forgetting my exhaustion.

In the water, the nausea, stomach cramps, and—worst of all—the disturbing, full-body sensation of being poisoned were displaced by pure, gentle pleasure. Often, I'd simply float, staring up at the pecan trees and blue summer sky, reveling in the lightness of my body.

Later that summer, after finishing those critical rounds of chemotherapy, I underwent a lumpectomy to remove any remaining tumor and scar tissue from my right breast, and an accompanying lymphadenectomy to remove all lymph nodes under my arm.

Afterward, my oncologist at last declared me cancer-free.

I had imagined such a definitive moment would feel joyful and transformative, launching me toward normal life again.

I believed that my remaining treatments, which would last nearly a year and include both radiation and lighter chemotherapy infusions, would feel easy—the steepest challenge of illness behind me.

At my oncologist's announcement, though, I felt only a hazy indifference.

"Great," I said, but my voice came out flat and unaffected.

Looking back, I see that I was far from indifferent. Rather, I was too overwhelmed with too much emotion to feel anything at all.

That October, friends gathered on a backyard deck for an impromptu party, the first I'd attended since the pandemic began. My hair was barely returning in a downy fuzz. I walked up to the deck carrying a bottle of wine, greeted warmly by neighbors and acquaintances I hadn't seen for half a year.

As I settled in among the group, though, I sensed an underlying awkwardness, an unspoken concern for what might be okay to say or to ask me.

After several minutes of small talk, a woman with whom I'd chatted lightly at gatherings over the years caught my eye from across the table.

"Ashleigh," she said gently. Then, her eyes filled with compassion, she simply shook her head.

In some ways, the moment was a gift: A nearly wordless acknowledgment of my recent trauma.

It was also at odds with the normalcy I desperately craved, so I brushed past her effort. I joked about my buzz cut and assured anyone within earshot that I was cancer-free now. I was okay.

That same season, a dream I'd had years ago—still in my twenties—often came to mind: A baby deer moving carefully over the thin ice of a broad river. After cancer, my sense of myself was just as precarious and tender.

Still, I searched fruitlessly for the life I'd left behind before both personal and global illness—but, of course, the pandemic was still ongoing, and I was still navigating new medical experiences: The daily radiation, maintenance chemo infusions, countless ongoing lab and oncology appointments.

Although the pools reopened, I didn't often swim—not even in the privacy of that backyard pool, though it remained on offer. I felt scared to do much of anything that reminded me I had a body, because this also meant the terrifying possibility of illness.

Eventually, in the summer of 2021, my surgeon removed my IV port—signifying the conclusive end of my treatments.

Two months later, I followed my long-time dream of moving to New York City. My debut novel came out the following spring, and I went on a book tour.

From an outside perspective, my life looked like one of triumph and transformation—the warrior myth, so often assigned to cancer patients, fully enacted.

Inwardly, though, I was often overwhelmed with grief for my life before I had to worry about cancer, and for the changes to my body after so many efforts to preserve it.

This winter, when a friend recommended Nyad to me, I was almost 41. Once more, I found myself fascinated with Diana Nyad—this time not just her ambition, but by the solitude of her journey, her strength.

Annette Bening's depiction of Nyad is powerfully and often hilariously tough. Even in casual conversation with Bonnie, each word seems expelled from her body with both speed and force, as though speech itself could propel her forward.

But Bening also brings a vulnerability to Nyad that strikes me as quietly electric, pulsing just under the surface of every tough and abrasive moment. Flashbacks that intercut the present timeline of the film eventually reveal to us that, as a 14-year-old, Nyad was sexually assaulted by a trusted swim coach.

In one particularly moving scene, she admits to Bonnie how frustrated she feels that, though she's doing well in her life, there are still times when she feels like that same 14-year-old again.

"I get so mad at myself," she says, close to tears. "Why didn't I fight harder?"

Suddenly, I saw myself in the days after chemotherapy, when I felt my worst.

I saw how sickly I looked: Gums gray and tender, skin pale. Like Nyad, I embraced toughness and resisted the idea of victimhood. For the first time, though, I felt deep tenderness for that vulnerable version of myself. You were so scared, I thought.

In a culture in which the myth of transformation too often bypasses the difficult, messy struggle that accompanies it, it may be tempting to assume that Nyad must transcend her past in order to reach her goal—but the richness of Nyad lies in its honest exploration of both the challenge and power of bearing witness to our own painful pasts.

Rather than abandon my sickly past self in the name of moving on, Nyad reminds me that she's as essential to my story as my current healthy self.

I often recall a climactic moment in the film: 14-year-old Nyad appears underwater, swimming just ahead of present day, 64-year-old Nyad. Sensing that her adult companion is struggling, the girl turns back to her and calls out: "Keep going."

Ashleigh Bell Pedersen is the author of The Crocodile Bride, a New York Times Editors' Choice. She lives in Brooklyn with her dog, Ernie.

All views expressed are the author's own.

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