BoomerGirl Diary

"I'm aware of it, yet I don't let it bother my life," Shirley Anderson said.

Almost four years after her diagnosis, Shirley Anderson is breast cancer free.

Shirley will live the rest of her life with lymphedema, swelling in the arm due to damage or removal of a lymph node.

"If you have radiation to that area, if they're surgically removed, it's kind of like the system doesn't have all the pieces to operate...It gets backed up because the fluid has to place to go because the nodes aren't there to help filter it," Kreider Rehabilitation Services worker Jaye Cole said.

Lymphedema comes on slowly, marked by a feeling of fullness or heaviness in the arms, tightness in the skin and limited flexibility in the hand and wrist.

The good news is that it's very treatable.

"There's specific massage techniques and what you're doing is it's about five grams of pressure, so it's like the weight of a nickel in your hand and it's that kind of pressure that you're putting on the surface of the skin to move the fluid, and you have to have a good knowledge base of where the lymph vessels are and where you're going to direct that flow around the blocked area," Cole said.

To manage flare ups, Shirley commits an hour a day to the condition. Thirty minutes of special exercises and followed by thirty minutes of rest.

She wears a compression sleeve on her affected arm every day, but she says she never lets the condition take over.

"I'm not going to live my life in a glass bubble, I'm going to enjoy life and do what I want to do," Anderson said.

The smallest cut or even a hangnail can exacerbate lymphedema. Cole recommends patients moisturize the skin and take extra steps to avoid cuts and burn. Also, avoid any muscle strain or over-exertion.