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sjlight
Jan 19, 2010, 8:04 PM
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Hi, I was recently diagnosed with Breast Cancer and will be undergoing a mastectomy and reconstruction. I love climbing and it is an integral part of my life. I am looking for information about breast cancer and climbing.
I am wondering how my mastectomy and reconstruction will effect my climbing ability. I am having a difficult time connecting with women climbers that have had this procedure.
A dear friend of mine Jon has also posted for me in the ladies section of this forum but I thought there must be plenty of men that know of women that have gone through this.
Any information would be helpful.
I can be reached through my email at sjlight04@yahoo.com
~S
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rhyang
Jan 19, 2010, 8:44 PM
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Registered: Nov 10, 2004
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A friend had a bilateral mastectomy as a result of breast cancer a few years ago, and is back to climbing. She is Lisae in this trip report on supertopo.
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dugl33
Jan 19, 2010, 9:18 PM
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S, your courage is humbling...
(((Full Recovery)))
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reperio1
Jan 19, 2010, 11:21 PM
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I remember hearing of a group called HERA, which sponsors different climbing events to support cancer research and treatment. I think it tends toward a different type of cancer, but thought I would mention it.
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osu_cowboy
Jan 20, 2010, 12:15 AM
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I hope your recovery goes well and wish you the best in your future climbing and life...
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rschap
Jan 20, 2010, 5:19 AM
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Not that I can completely relate but I did have a benign tumor removed from my right breast last year (fibro mitosis). They had to remove a rather large amount of the fatty tissue and cut down to the fascia of the muscle leaving a large dent in my chest. I could have an implant to make it look normal again but I don’t worry about it and my wife doesn’t seem to mind. I was not allowed to lift or climb for a couple of months but everything seems to be back to normal now. I know my situation is different than yours but I believe with enough determination anything is possible. My understanding is that most breast cancer is in the fatty tissue and not in the muscle as much, so with luck you won’t lose too much or any of your muscle tissue. Good luck.
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obsessed
Jan 20, 2010, 3:43 PM
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sjlight wrote: Hi, I was recently diagnosed with Breast Cancer and will be undergoing a mastectomy and reconstruction. I love climbing and it is an integral part of my life. I am looking for information about breast cancer and climbing. I am wondering how my mastectomy and reconstruction will effect my climbing ability. I am having a difficult time connecting with women climbers that have had this procedure. A dear friend of mine Jon has also posted for me in the ladies section of this forum but I thought there must be plenty of men that know of women that have gone through this. Any information would be helpful. I can be reached through my email at sjlight04@yahoo.com ~S
Almost three years ago I also underwent the same surgery and had 5 weeks of radiation treatment. I was not able to climb for 6 months and was honestly too tired to. When I got the go ahead to start climbing again I did feel weak and had some issues with scar tissue but worked through all that. In October I climbed at red rock. Breast cancer didn't take climbing away from me, if anything it made me mentally stronger and you will be too.
I will send you an email so that we can keep in touch.
Kelly
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comparedtowhat
Jan 20, 2010, 11:43 PM
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~S
When I did treatment back 2006 there was not really any other women on here that had gone through this. It is quite the trip. I did 2 lx and then finally had a mx. I also did chemo and rads and climbed through it all. Not well, but I did it and it helped my sanity greatly. If you can avoid the chemo, do so as it changed me from a muscular standpoint more than I bargained for esp since it's makes you go into premature menopause. Muscles need estrogen to work too! Rads will make the tissues very tight so you should be doing all kinds of stretching of the pecs, traps etc I had to work very hard to keep things open and do yoga almost everyday and my range is better than it was before treatment. I did not want to do a recon as that type of convalescence would make me crazy and for me putting anything under the pec muscle is not what I want to do.... unless you go for a DIEP or something like that. Please do your homework and check out the following sites below. If you have DCIS please note that papers have come out on it's over treatment and have in some cases questioned the need for the usual aggressive treatment that has been recommended. In my case I had an already invasive tumor and needed to be slightly more aggressive. Remember to advocate for yourself and not just accept standard of care as something you just take as a given....it is your body and you get to decide what happens to it! Questioning and research will be your best weapons. You will bounce back and be climbing again. I can now say that I am finally climbing a few grades higher than I was in 2006 but it has been much hard work. It still pisses me off (as you can tell) that I had to do it in the first place! No family history of BC, vegetarian, athletic, breast fed my kids and all that..makes no difference and as you know it can happen to anyone
All the women on these sites will be a
wealth of support and info for you!
http://community.breastcancer.org/
http://www.youngsurvival.org/en/community/bulletin-board/
http://www.bcaction.org/
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robdotcalm
Jan 22, 2010, 12:15 AM
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Hello,
I can’t directly relate to breast-cancer surgery, but 12 ½ years ago, but I had open-heart surgery for aortic valve replacement. As in mastectomy, it’s the pectoral area that gets cut up so that my experience may be of some relevance. As the surgeon said, first we create an auto accident, then we patch your heart, and then we put you back together. In my surgery, some of the ribs were cut and then pulled apart to gain access to the heart (not the usual splitting of the sternum). Post-op, it took some time for the bones, cartilage, and muscles to heal and, especially, for the intercostal cartilage to not be painful when I exerted myself. One advantage for heart surgery over cancer is that one is not looking at either radiation or chemotherapy. As long as nothing has gone wrong during the surgery, the medical intervention ends. On the other hand, heart surgery cuts deeper into the muscles and the bone. One jolt for me after the surgery occurred a week later when I saw myself in a mirror for the first time. My upper body muscles had shrunk to mere shadows of what they were before surgery.
Ignoring the daily details of difficulties during the first 6 weeks, and there were several, it took about 2 months to regain a semblance of aerobic capacity and then that improved quickly. I was anemic after surgery—just above the threshold for needing a transfusion.
I had a persistent problem with regaining upper body strength. After getting to the point in about 3 months, where I could easily hike 5 miles, if I lifted anything heavier than 10 lbs. or so I’d get a high pulse and a bit of a fever. The doctors had no explanation for this. After about 6 months the problem stopped. It took me a couple of months after that to get back a decent share of my upper body strength, and then I started climbing. I’ve been a weight lifter for decades so that’s what I did to regain strength I started slowly doing the lifting moves without weights and then adding 2 lbs. or so when I felt I could lift more weight comfortably. I was careful not to over exert during the recovery period. I was concentrating not on climbing but on getting better so that I could live a normal life. I don’t enjoy stretching, but I did what I felt I needed to keep from being overly stiff. After that point, my mind naturally returned to climbing. It may be cold comfort but there is a certain satisfaction in the recovery process, e.g., the day I realized that I was walking a half mile farther than I was able to a week earlier.
In terms of climbing, the most important thing was that I had friends who were patient with me as we climbed easy 5th class routes (< 5.5). In a couple of months, I was leading moderate 10s, but I took it slowly and cautiously.
Best wishes for a full recovery so that you’re healthy and you're able to climb again. Thoughts and prayers are with you.
Rob.calm
P.S. Here’s a link to a site that has information on getting a second pathology opinion if that’s what you want (doesn’t sound like you do, but just throwing it out for information.]
Breast cancer 2nd opinion
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