ENCORE #113! – 10 Exercise TIPS for Cancer Folk (and don’t forget the significant others!)

From the first moment my wife discovered she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this blog…That was four years ago – as time passed, people searching for answers stumbled across my blog and checked out what I had to say. The following entry first appeared in December of 2015.

“You should just exercise! It will take away the stress! It will help you heal faster! Exercise will make you better!”

Cool.

Fine. Sign me up for the next Grandma’s Marathon! Running twenty-six miles should be good for at least one chemotherapy session, right?

Exercise…

What exactly does this mean? How do I turn “exercise is good for you” into something I can DO? Oh, and is the “exercise is good for you” mantra only for the loved one with cancer? What about me – who put on something over ten pounds during the chemo sessions and can’t seem to shake the weight now?

The answers to these questions a literally scattered all over the internet, so I’ll try and analyze and condense them here into TEN workable breast cancer treatment and after-treatment practical exercise tips (ALWAYS TALK TO OR CALL YOUR CANCER CARE CENTER BEFORE YOU START ANY KIND OF EXERCISE TO SEE IF IT’S SAFE FOR YOU):

1)      “‘You don't have to be Lance Armstrong,’ stresses Dr. Julia Rowland of the National Cancer Institute, speaking from a survivorship meeting this month that highlighted exercise research. ‘Walk the dog, play a little golf.’” Walk the dog, walk to the end of the block, walk somewhere. Several people recommended finding a neighborhood indoor mall that opens early and walk the perimeter before the stores open. Walk!

2)     “Researchers think exercising together may help both partners stick with it. They also are testing whether the shared activity improves both physical functioning and eases the strain that cancer puts on the caregiver and the marriage.” Walk with a loved one (in my case, ME! I should be walking and exercising WITH my wife. WALKING. Doing DANCE FEVER to an enjoyable music routine. Life weights – or cans of soup if you don’t have weights. A little weight lifted a number of times during a day counts as exercise! Hide the weight in your work locker or in a desk drawer – or leave it out and tell people what you’re doing. You will find a remarkable amount of support.

3)     “For example, Schmitz led a major study that found careful weight training can protect against lymphedema, reversing years of advice to coddle the at-risk arm…” See #2 – lift anything! (By the way, this is called resistance training – the weight “resists” being lifted.)

4)     “…at-home exercises with some muscle-strengthening, plus a better diet, could slow physical decline.” There are dozens of DVD exercise programs. If you can’t buy one, check one out from your local library or ask to borrow one from a local gym, YMCA or school. Do as much as you can, then stop. (See #1 above!) Also, lifting the DVD into the player is exercise! Here’s the address for a DVD specifically for breast cancer survivors: http://www.strengthandcourage.net/

5)     Arms at your side, hold a towel in both hands. Using the unaffected arm, pull the other behind the back. Alternate Pain is to be respected and the stretch should be held to the point of discomfort not pain .The stretches should be held from 5-10 seconds at first, gradually increasing the length of time. It’s better to do this several times during the day, rather than all at once. With arms bent (on either side of the head), hold a towel in both hands. Using the unaffected arm, pull the other behind the head.

6)      “If lymphedema is a concern, you…should be fitted with a sleeve which is worn while exercising especially when lifting weights. Progress…slowly and start with a light weight – ONE pound is just fine.”

7)     Walking and cycling are quite beneficial as are swimming, cross training, or aerobics. It is best to begin with a 5-10 minute walk to judge...if a long period is too much, multiple shorter aerobic sessions are fine. Your goal will be to gradually increase the time period engaged in aerobic exercise and to slowly increase your exercise tolerance.

8)    Doing yoga can provide flexibility benefits as well as instruction in stress reduction techniques that can prove beneficial. [I know nothing about yoga, so start with a library visit or a YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3vLZqPZxZE]

9)     Yep, I’m sayin’ it again: “Walking, a common fitness choice, offers the benefits of aerobic exercise without overly straining the body. According to a 2005 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the benefits of walking peak when a breast cancer patient or survivor walks 3 to 5 hours weekly at a pace of 2 to 3 miles per hour.”

Find a swimming pool and join a waterobics class; if you can’t join a class, get this CD: http://www.maryessert.com/bcr.htm This site lists the exercises and exactly how to do them!

Image: https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5527/10893068965_1d328e8f71_b.jpg

GUY’S GOTTA TALK ABOUT: BREAST CANCER #46…A Heartbeat Away From Our New Normal

From the first moment my wife discovered she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this blog…

There were so many things that changed after the initial breast cancer diagnosis. I can’t speak for my wife because while I’ve been here the whole time, I can’t read her mind, either. I don’t know where her thoughts flit from moment to moment.

But, I DO know where my mind has gone.

I can tell you that I act as if nothing’s happened in the past; that there “was no breast cancer”; that everything has been totally normal.

Then, it all comes rushing back – like last weekend when she cut her thumb on one of our new knives. They’re incredibly sharp, and I cut my finger on one the first week we got it. She was using what’s called the “Chef’s knife: has a blade between 6 and 14 inches long and 1½ inches wide, with a curve that becomes more pronounced near the tip.” We were going have dessert after a hamburger and hot dog meal, and she was slicing a new watermelon. She slashed her left index finger near the end and was dripping blood.

I’d had a similar cut earlier, but my wife also has several factors against her – most notably, she has Von Willebrand Disease. Her brother and at least one cousin were born with hemophilia, but she can’t get it because the disease is only survivable in males (it was also called “bleeders disease” and is the absence of a clotting factor in the blood. You imagine the scenario…) At any rate, my wife has, “…a genetic disorder caused by missing or defective von Willebrand factor (VWF), a clotting protein. VWF binds factor VIII, a key clotting protein, and platelets in blood vessel walls, which help form a platelet plug during the clotting process.”

In practice, it means she clots very slowly. So, we headed to the hospital where they stopped the bleeding, cleaned her up, and used skin glue to seal the cut. (In 1980, I took an Organic Chemistry class where the professor shared he was doing research on MAKING skin glue. It didn’t exist at the time, making my wife a direct recipient of the work Dr. Kowanko was doing when he and his colleagues, “glued steaks together to see if they would stay stuck”…)

While we were there, my wife commented, “It’s a good thing it wasn’t my right hand that got the cut.” My daughter-in-law, who was with us for arm support and emotional support (my daughter is seven-and-a-half months pregnant and would have struggled to be her usual staunch supporting self…), asked “Why?”

My wife shared that if she had cut her right hand, her body would have responded by flooding the arm with white blood cells carried by lymph – which is a good thing. However, she’s missing most of the nodes in her armpit, which had been taken when she had a double mastectomy to remove the breast cancer – which is a bad thing as instead of being returned to the body, the lymph now pools in her arm, making it swell (lymphedema).

A major cut like that would have caused a major reaction, and we’d have had to go to the lymphedema specialist, then she’d have to wear the sleeve as well as use the “sleeping sleeve”, and it’s the middle of summer…and it would have been miserable…

At any rate, like I said, every once in a while, the fact of breast cancer in my wife’s life all comes rushing back. In this case it was only an alternate future where that happened, but still, my heart near-to-stops when I think of what MIGHT have happened. Evidence that breast cancer and the aftermath is only a heartbeat away from our new normal…

Resource:

Image: http://wrex.images.worldnow.com/images/23784252_SA.jpg

ENCORE #112! – “The doctor gave me a pill and I grew a new kidney!”

From the first moment my wife discovered she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this blog…That was four years ago – as time passed, people searching for answers stumbled across my blog and checked out what I had to say. The following entry first appeared in January of 2014.

ST was my favorite TV show growing up, as an adult and now as an “old guy”. During the opening week of the STAR TREK 2009 reboot, my dad (who introduced me to STAR TREK), me (a total ST fan) and my son (who grew up with ST and at whom the new movie was targeted) – went to see it. None of the wonder was gone and I love the NEW as much as all of the old.

At any rate, it got me to thinking about a scene from STAR TREK IV: The Voyage Home in which an elderly woman is laying on a hospital cot waiting to go in for dialysis:

McCoy: [McCoy, masked and in surgical garb, passes an elderly woman groaning on a gurney in the hallway] What's the matter with you?

Elderly patient: [weakly] Kidney [pause] dialysis.

McCoy: [geniunely surprised] Dialysis?[musing to himself] What is this, the Dark Ages? [He turns back to the patient and hands her a large white pill] Here, [pause] you swallow that, and if you have any more problems, just call me! [He pats her cheek and leaves]

…a few moments later…

Elderly patient: [the dialysis patient is being wheeled down the hall after being given the pill by McCoy] [joyfully] The doctor gave me a pill, and I grew a new kidney!

(from: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092007/quotes)

It made me wonder for two reasons. The first was that while today breast cancer survival rates are as high as 98% (for early detection and treatment), at one time tumors could only be detected when they could actually be felt – and then the ONLY treatment was radical mastectomy which, in the late 19^th Century removed not only breast tissue but muscles and all lymph nodes as well. If a woman survived that, she was profoundly weakened and handicapped for the rest of her life.

The introduction of modified mastectomies (1950s), mammogram advances (starting in 1967), ultrasound (late 1970s), followed by MRIs, digital mammography, 3D mammography and increasingly refined chemotherapy (introduced in the 1940s), radiation (early 20^th Century) and lumpectomies combined with radiation therapy (1970s) and most recently, hormonal treatment and genetic testing leading to targeted treatment, which give us the survival rates we see today.

I’m going to delve into the history of breast cancer later, but for now, let me just say that while it still terrifies me even now; I do have a daughter and hold VERY high hopes that either her or her daughter will someday be able to pop a pill and cry out, “The doctor gave me a pill and I’m cured of breast cancer!”

Image: https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5527/10893068965_1d328e8f71_b.jpg

Encouragement (In Suffering, Pain, and Witnessing Both…) #7: “20 Things To Do To Encourage Someone With A Breast Cancer Diagnosis”

The older I get, the more suffering and pain I’ve experienced; and the more of both I stand witness to. From my wife’s (and many, many of our friends and coworkers) battle against breast cancer; to my dad’s (and the parents of many of our friends and coworkers) process as he fades away as this complex disease breaks the connections between more and more memories, I have become not only frustrated with suffering, pain, and having to watch both, I have been witness to the suffering and pain among the students I serve as a school counselor. I have become angry and sometimes paralyzed. This is my attempt to lift myself from the occasional stifling grief that darkens my days…

It’s simple today – instead of recreating the wheel, I’ll share something with you that was meaningful to me: https://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20738293,00.html

Image: http://www.quoteambition.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/encourage-quotes-destiny.jpg