MAA 17 Days - Lymphedema
In 2005, I was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer. That means there was a large tumor in my breast and that the cancer cells had made an escape attempt via the lymphatic system. When I had my mastectomy, nine nodes were taken out from under my arm. This put me at risk for a condition/disease called lymphedema.
Your lymph system is kind of like the waste disposal system of your body. Imagine you are like a building full of apartments, complete with dumpsters downstairs in the alley and garbage cans in every kitchen. Now imagine one of the dumpsters has been removed or nine of the apartments have had their garbage cans taken away. You still have the same amount of trash but fewer places to put it. You can see how things could get backed up. It's the same with the lymph system.
What this means for me is that I'm at risk for developing problems with the lymphatic system in my left arm. My arm is vulnerable to swelling and infection now that nine of the nodes aren't there anymore to help remove the body's 'trash' (dead and infected cells, etc.). In the most extreme cases, there could be acute swelling and pain. Most swelling is irreversible - and really ugly. Think of your arm swelling up to two or three times its normal size. If that's not bad enough, the tissue gets hard as well. And it hurts.
I have a slight lymphedema in my left arm. It is about 1/2 inch bigger in diameter than my right arm. It is more noticable on certain days than others. I have a compression sleeve I wear when things start to get ugly, which , thankfully, doesn't happen that often. To be completely honest, I'm more frightened of lymphedema than I am of the cancer returning.
During flare-ups, my arm feels tight and it hurts. When it gets that bad, I wash the arm in cool water and put the sleeve on. Sometimes I'll even wrap the arm in ice packs and prop the arm on the back of the couch and watch TV. A couple times the pain has woken me up in the middle of the night only to have my husband find me in the bathroom at 2:30 in the morning obsessively measuring my left arm over and over and comparing it to the measurements of my right. That or staring at the reflection of my arms in the mirror, comparing the two side by side.
There are bunches of rules about things I'm not suppose to do anymore. Don't lift more than 15 pounds with the affected arm. Don't get bitten by insects. (Oh, OK. Just let me tell the bees, wasps, and mosquitos.) Don't cut yourself. I'm not allowed to shovel snow. (Meh, I don't mind that one.) Wear long sleeves when you're outside - even in the summer.
I won't say I'm cavalier about it all, but some stuff is a bit too much. I regularly lift weights. Fifteen pounds is nothing and there is anectdotal evidence that shows that women who lifted weights before their mastectomy can continue afterwards.
So what does this mean for London? Anytime I get on a plane, I have to wear a compression sleeve. I'm suppose to put it on two hours before the flight, leave it on for the duration of the flight, and remove it no sooner than two hours after landing. Which means I'll be wearing the thing for about twelve straight hours. The sleeve gives a very strong squeeze, like a shoulder to wrist BP cuff that stays inflated. It gets itchy and uncomfortable. After all that, it still offers no guarantees that it will prevent swelling, but it does decrease the chances of something going wrong. I'm always a bit self-conscious about it because the sleeve just screams, "Something's wrong with me!" I had a little girl on a plane ask me why I wore the sleeve. I've also had people think I was a burn victim.
I'm always afraid of running across a real dick of a security person who will demand I remove the sleeve before allowing me through the check point. It hasn't happened, but then each of those times I was wearing long sleeves and therefore the compression sleeve couldn't be seen. I hope my luck will hold!
I'm certainly not whining, just typing. I have a few preventative techniques I can use to help my arm and I also have an amazing lymphatic drainage specialist who keeps my arm in good working order.
I also wear a medical ID bracelet for the condition. ( I blurred out my name so I can maintain a bit of my mystery!)
Ah, cancer, the gift that keeps on giving...(not).