Short Video on the Lymph System

I found this video really interesting - short and informative. Watching it helped me understand my lymph issues better.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh-XdN...

Someone asked me why I found this so valuable and this is why - My cancer was on the left side, I had Left MX with axillary dissection removing 18 lymph nodes (of which 5 were cancerous).  After chemo I had radiation - they radiated the whole chest area, including along the sternum, the axillary area and the supraclavicular area.  If you look at the picture, you can see that the lymph system that carries the lymph to the subclavian is along the left side of your sternum and up near your clavicle.  So the lymph nodes that I had remaining were then radiated.  Because of my stage of cancer they radiated me at the highest doses, and the boost area, because of where my tumor was located, was basically the whole thing, except a couple of corners.  I didn't show any symptoms of LE until after radiation.  This just showed me that basically there was no where for my lymph from the left arm to go - my LE therapist had tried to explain this to me, but until I saw this video it just didn't click.  She always tries to move my lymph across my belly and around to my spine where there are more lymph passages I guess you could say.  This also helped  me understand why moving lymph (through massage) to the clavicle (which is normally done), or across the chest, doesn't work, and why it's harder for me to control my swelling (that and compliance ;-) )  Basically my lymph nodes on the chest on the left side, near my clavicle and in the axillary area either just aren't there or are damaged.  I hope that makes some sense.  I had to run the video again and really look at the drainage system to be able to somewhat explain it.