Mercy Cancer Services
Patient Stories - Suzanne Mounger
Photo cut line—Suzanne Mounger remains passionate
about gardening, though she approaches it much more carefully now with
lymphedema. Her lymphedema surfaced this summer after working in the
heat to prepare her Edmond garden for her sister’s fall wedding.
Anyone who has had radiation or had lymph nodes
removed is at risk for lymphedema—a debilitating disorder that can
evolve into terrible swelling and ??pain. Whether it’s because the
lymphedema message gets lost in the rush of the cancer journey or
because it just goes untold, many patients echo the fact that they never
saw it coming.
“When I got the diagnosis of lymphedema and that my
lifestyle was going to change for the rest of my life, that news was
more devastating than the cancer diagnosis itself,” says Suzanne
Mounger, a 51-year-old graphic artist who recently underwent treatment
for breast cancer. “Lymphedema is a very serious, dangerous disorder,
and there is no cure.”
For people who recognize the disorder, they usually
associate it with breast cancer. But it affects anyone who has had
radiation or had lymph nodes removed. Many Oklahomans can attest to that
fact including 31-year-old Edie Fiske of Mustang who was diagnosed with
ovarian cancer at 25, Oklahoma City’s Carl Yeager, now 83, who had
testicular cancer 25 years ago, as well as breast cancer survivor Annie
Shell, 52, of Edmond.
For some, the symptoms surface quickly. For others,
the disorder lies dormant for years until one day, it rears its ugly
head.
For Edie Fiske, lymphedema didn’t hit until spring
of 2006, five years after cancer treatment. “Right after I did some heavy lifting in moving to a
new house, my ankles swelled up,” recalls Edie. “I thought I had twisted
my ankle.”
By the time Edie found occupational therapists at
Mercy Therapy Services, she was beyond discouraged. “I thought my situation was hopeless,” she says. “I
thought I’d never be normal. It got so bad that I could barely walk and
I couldn’t wear any of my shoes.”
But like many a lymphedema patient who finally finds
a trail leading to Mercy Therapy Services—which includes a team of three
certified lymphedema therapists—what was once grim becomes hopeful.
“Once I started therapy, I could see results right
away,” says Edie. “The pain was relieved almost immediately.”
Carl Yeager found relief, too, but it wasn’t until
many years later. After undergoing testicular surgery a quarter of a
century ago, he lived with lymphedema for years, not finding any real
answers until the early 1990s when he visited a physician in New York. “There was very little known at the time,” says
Carl. “I just lived with it for a long time.”
Then in 2003, he found Mercy Therapy Services and
ever since, he has worn a specially designed compression sleeve every
night on his right leg, visits Mercy lymphedema therapists as needed and
daily performs a technique, taught by Mercy therapists, that redirects
the body’s fluids which have bottlenecked in one area.
Annie Shell adheres to her regimen as well, careful
to keep her lymphedema in check. She knows all too well how debilitating
the disorder can be.
“I was in so much pain, I just couldn’t take it,”
she says. “I looked like I was pregnant because I was so swollen and
bloated. My stomach, my face, my hands and my arms were swollen. I
couldn’t get into any of my regular clothes. I could barely raise my
arm. It was difficult to do most anything, even brush my hair or take a
shower.”
It was 10 years ago when Annie was diagnosed with
breast cancer. And for that decade, she showed no signs or symptoms of
lymphedema. But after 10 years of being cancer free, she was diagnosed
with breast cancer again this past January. And it was after this last
round of cancer that lymphedema surfaced.
“It was something new to me,” she says. But after
undergoing lymphedema therapy, her pain level went from nine to one. “As soon as I started therapy, my pain became
manageable,” she says.
Again and again, people with lymphedema say that if
they’d only known about the disorder, they would have done things very
differently. They wouldn’t have painted that baby’s room, they wouldn’t
have lifted their 4-year-old granddaughter or they wouldn’t have pushed
themselves so hard in the heat.
“If I had been informed, I wouldn’t have been doing
what I was doing,” says Suzanne, an avid gardener who has taken her
gardening down several notches. “I can still garden but I do it early in
the morning or later in the evening when it’s cooler, and I no longer
move heavy wheelbarrows of dirt. If I’d only been told of lymphedema, I
might have kept it at bay.”
While there are triggers for lymphedema, there’s no
hard data that proves it can be completely avoided. But most agree it’s
manageable, and it’s more manageable the earlier it’s caught.
“A lot of lymphedema is left undiagnosed,” says
Teresa Daugherty, a certified Mercy lymphedema therapist. “People are
living with it without the knowledge that there are ways to manage the
disorder. It’s really critical that people seek therapy.”
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