SARASOTA – Doctors Hospital is giving Breast Cancer survivors relief for a condition many struggle with after recovering from the disease.
“Ended up finding out that after 26 years of not having issues, I had to deal with lymphedema,” said Doctors Hospital Patient, Wendy Fecteau.
Sarasota resident, Wendy Fecteau is a breast cancer survivor of 26 years. Fecteau had been overall healthy up until a shoulder replacement surgery where she developed a painful condition called lymphedema.
“The best way that I can explain it was the amount of pressure that was in my system was like a water balloon that was overfilled that wouldn’t pop, I call it pressure pain and I tried to explain that to the doctors because they were trying to treat the pain but they we’re not treating what was wrong,” said Fecteau.
The condition is describes as when a patient’s arms, legs, or neck can swell from the accumulation of fluid that is usually drained by the lymphatic system in the body. If lymph nodes are removed or damaged during breast cancer treatment it puts patients at increased risk after surgery in the same region. Breast cancer patients who have had lymph nodes removed, like Fecteau, are especially vulnerable.
“There’s no definitive treatment, there are some trial surgeries but they’re aren’t out there yet, the main thing is physical therapy, compression, massage therapy and having a specialist who knows how to do these treatments well and do them regularly,” said Chief Medical Officer at Doctors Hospital, Jennifer Bocker.
Beyond the pain, Lymphedema was taking a toll on Fecteau’s everyday life to the point where she could not even wear a bra or accomplish her day-to-day activities. Eventually, she ended up at Doctor’s Hospital in Sarasota
“They helped me understand lymphedema, they taught me some things I could do on my own, I started coming here for treatments twice a week, they introduced me to the Lympa-press machine and it changed my life, in the last five months, I’ve gotten back to a normal life because we’ve gotten the swelling down and we’ve maintained it, because of the treatments we are doing,” said Fecteau.
Fecteau says surviving breast cancer made her a fighter and she was not ready to give up.
“I know so many people that deal with this that don’t know what it is, that I think it’s important to get the message out that there are options to treat it and there’s a way to live with it, it’s just learning how to maintain it,” said Fecteau.
According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, approximately one in five patients with breast cancer, who have lymph nodes removed, will develop lymphedema.
