Adventure training after Bilateral Mastectomy and Implants

Soyaandpepper

Hi ladies,

I was wondering if there's any of you out there that was into adventure training pre cancer and now are back to it? Its almost 10 months for me with my surgery and I was always very active and did regular weight training but now I started some new adventure outdoor training. How has it been your recovery and going back to what you used to do? 

NatsFan

Hi Soya - sorry this post apparently got overlooked.  I'm not sure what you mean by adventure training, but if it involves things like rock climbing and other upper body work, you need to take care to build up upper body strength safely because I see you've had nodes removed.  This means you are at increased risk for lymphedema.  Believe me, you do NOT want to trigger lymphedema. 

That said, if you take the time to build up slowly and safely, there's no reason you can't get back to your previous level of activity.  But don't rush things as you don't want lymphedema. 

Here are some guidelines from the Stepup-Speakout.org  lymphedema website about how how those of us who had any nodes removed can exercise safely now that we have lymphedema or are at increased risk for LE. Here are the links.

stepup-speakout.org/Handout%20...

stepup-speakout.org/Trainer%20...

The first link gives some quick guidelines on safe exercise. If you want to start or resume your exercise program, this documents can give you some helpful ideas about exercising safely. 

The second document is designed for exercise professionals.  You may want to print out a copy of this and give it to the adventure outdoor training leaders so they can work with you to make sure you're not inadvertently engaging in risky behavior that could trigger lymphedema.