It's Official

Yay?

I mean, okay.

We caught it early, just like the cancer that led to the lymphedema.

When the nurse measured my arms, Leftie was three centimeters larger than Rightie.

When the PT measured them exactly a week later, either Leftie had shrunk or Rightie had grown because there was only a 1.5 centimeter difference.

So that’s good news.

Alas, once you’ve been diagnosed with lymphedema, you will always have lymphedema, even if your affected limb doesn’t balloon out to elephant proportions.

For what it’s worth, I REALLY like to avoid that.

Apparently, I’m lucky that my affected limb is my dominant arm. That means I’ve maintained better range of motion due to constant use of said arm. (Read: I wipe my butt with the hand on the end of that arm…holding toilet paper, let’s not be any grosser than I’ve already been in this sentence.)

Typing is also good for the hands that might be affected by lymphedema. So, go me for having a job at which I sit and type quite a bit each day. And yay for blogging, right?

Right.

My insurance company approved the consult with the PT but hasn’t approved the actual physical therapy yet. Huh.

The therapist said it’s usually approved so we’ll see how that goes. She’d like to see me twice a week for four weeks and by then, I’ll have hopefully learned how to do the massage portion of the therapy myself.

That ought to be fun…for no one.

I’m not really as pissy as this post comes across.

I’m more…resigned.

I mean, the cancer diagnosis was bad enough. The surgery and ensuing recovery was, well, it was exhausting.

Chemo was awful and radiation, while not as bad as chemo, was time-consuming and tiring.

And now we’re throwing lymphedema into the mix because why the hell not? I guess I haven’t paid my dues enough yet.

I know I’m lucky to be here. Damn it, I KNOW that. I don’t want to go all ‘why me’ about this. Why not me, right?

It just sucks.