Episode Overview

After enduring multiple surgeries, rib resections, and stage 4 breast cancer treatment, Cheri Henderson was told her pain was just her “new normal.”

But then she met Monica Kasari-Desulme—a physical therapist specializing in cancer rehabilitation and lymphatic support—and everything changed.

In this powerful and emotional episode, Cheri shares how physical therapy helped her breathe, move, and live again. From not being able to sit in a car without pain to hiking the Grand Canyon, her transformation is nothing short of miraculous.

You’ll also hear from Monica, who breaks down the science behind scar tissue, adhesions, lymphatic drainage, craniosacral therapy, and chemo brain. Together, they help us understand why physical therapy isn’t just about range of motion—it’s about reclaiming your life after breast cancer.

🎧 In this episode, you’ll hear:

• Why “this is your new normal” is not the truth
• How adhesions from surgery can affect digestion, mobility, and pain
• What the lymphatic and glymphatic systems are—and why they matter in cancer recovery
• The emotional and physical transformation that’s possible with the right support
• How to advocate for cancer rehab and get it covered by insurance
• When to use compression garments, and what role breathing plays in healing

🕒 Episode Highlights:

00:00 – Meet Cheri Henderson and Monica Kasari-Desulme
06:30 – Cheri’s post-surgical pain and the moment she found physical therapy
10:00 – Lymphedema, swelling, and the “clogged drain” problem
14:40 – Scar tissue, adhesions, and why digestion gets disrupted
18:00 – Understanding the glymphatic system and chemo brain
25:00 – The role of sleep, breathing, and calming the nervous system
36:00 – Rebuilding pathways for lymph drainage
46:00 – From barely walking to hiking the Rockies
52:30 – Is it safe to exercise after lymph node removal?
58:00 – A sample weekly chemo/PT support protocol
1:04:00 – Can you still be helped years after treatment?
1:10:00 – What every survivor should know about cancer rehabilitation

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Read the full transcript:

0:00
Hey, friends, you are listening to Episode 420 of better than before breast cancer. I'm your host, Laura Lummer, and I have a special treat for you today. So I have two guests on today's show. I want to start off by telling you a little bit about them and why I invited them to speak on the show today. So one of the two is a client of mine. Her name is Sherry Henderson. She's been a client of mine since 2020 Sherry makes her home in Duluth, Minnesota, where she's lived for the past 28 years with her adventure partner, Brent, along the stunning shores of Lake Superior. She's a two time breast cancer thriver. So Sherry was first diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma stage three in 2019 and then with metastatic breast cancer in 2021 but she continues to live with strength and joy and purpose. She's active. She has an outdoor centered life, and she finds peace and inspiration in camping and fishing and traveling and exploring the natural world. She collects rocks, capturing her surroundings through photography, and she nurtures really deep connections with her friends and family. Sherry is also a published writer, and her work has appeared multiple times in the wildfire journal, which I'll link to in the show notes for this episode. It is the only literary magazine created for and by those who were quote, unquote, too young for breast cancer. Sherry has a BA in English from the University of Minnesota, Duluth, and a master's in Communicating Arts from the University of Wisconsin. Superior. She is amazing. Sherry is amazing, and she has been through some absolute hell with her treatments, which brought us around to this episode, which I'll get to in a minute. First, I want to introduce you to our second guest. Her name is Monica casare de summ. Monica is a physical therapist. She works in physical therapy and Cancer Rehabilitation. She has a master's degree from the College of Saint Scholastica in Duluth, Minnesota, and she is an incredible wealth of knowledge. So the reason that I invited these women to come and share what you're about to hear on today's episode is because while Sherry was going through some of her hell, which included surgery and very invasive therapies for metastatic breast cancer, Monica stepped in. Cherry found her, and Monica supported her so much through physical therapy, and in doing so, helped relieve Sherry, as you're going to hear, I don't want to get too much into her story, because you're going to hear it, but literally changed her life. The pain that she was enduring, the suffering that she was enduring, was completely changed and relieved by the work that she did with Monica. And I wanted to share this Sherry story and Monica's insights with you, because I think that, personally, I think that physical therapy is very underestimated, and that we might think about it after a mastectomy, you know, after some kind of an invasive surgery that we have for breast cancer treatment just to get movement back in range of motion, into that shoulder, or something like that. But physical therapy is so vitally important, and honestly, you know, it's helped me a lot throughout the years, I've been to physical therapy on a couple of different of occasions for lymphedema and for surgery recovery. But when you listen to Monica talk on this show, and the depth that she goes into about how we can find not only relief, but how physical therapy, especially after we've had treatments that have impacted our upper torso, and how the impact on that upper torso can affect so many other things in our health, even including our digestion that we may not know or even think about. And Monica is going to share some of her insights in here, on on how what's happening in our body, which is all connected, right? Nothing in our body happens in a vacuum or happens in a silo. Everything affects everything else. And so you're going to hear Sherry's story, and you're going to hear from Monica and how they work together, and how physical therapy can support. A body in the process of healing. And honestly, I think it's a remarkable conversation. This episode is longer than my normal episodes, and honestly, it could have been twice as long, because Monica is amazing, and I could listen to her forever. Sherry is amazing, and I could listen to her insights forever. She's such an inspiration. So without further ado, I'm going to let you get straight into this episode and listen to these two remarkable women and the story they have to share. So welcome Sherry And Monica. I'm so glad to have you here on the better than before breast cancer podcast. How you ladies doing

5:33
today? Very good. Very good. Nice to be here.

5:37
So good to have you. So as I was saying in the introduction. The reason I wanted to share this podcast and record this podcast is because I know how much physical therapy can help people. It can be so beneficial, and I know also, when we get into the system, when we have a breast cancer diagnosis, there's a lot of information and services that sometimes we just never hear about, and we don't even understand how much they can help us. And so I know I've had help, but I want Sherry to share her story. All right. I want to hear about like, what you went through that led you to Monica, and what came of that. And then we have a million questions for you, Monica, when it comes to that too, and how this all works. So share. I'm gonna hand it over to you, and let's just hear what got you into physical therapy.

6:31
Thanks, Laura. I'm so excited to be talking with both of you, having you in the same room, it's like for me. I mean, both of you are part of my treatment plan, so this is like the opportunity to have both of you, you know, Laura, you healed my mindset, and then Monica, you Healed my body. So it's like having, you know, everything in one space, which is, is just amazing, as I've thought about, you know what, what we're talking about today. Um, so cool. But so I guess I could start with, I was diagnosed at 39 with stage three invasive ductal carcinoma, and then again at 41 with stage four metastatic breast cancer. And I came to Monica in the middle, I think, in the summer of 2022 and this was after double mastectomies, multiple surgeries. I had three rib surgeries that really, really affected my chest and adhesions and scar tissue, and I had been through, you know, chemotherapy, obviously, radiation, so many cancer treatments that affected my body, and I didn't know that I could feel differently or better than how I was feeling. So I thought this was my new normal, with all the surgeries I had, you know, chronic pain. I was at a point where I couldn't breathe without pain, and it was like I was at my wit's end, because I didn't know, you know, I'd taken all the drugs, and it was this, every, every day, every moment, like brick wall of a torso that I had, and I just didn't know that it could be different. And so I went to my doctor with just so, you know, at my wit's end, and I had remembered that occupational therapy had helped me so much when I had my double mastectomy with getting my range of motion back and being able to, you know, raise my hands and, you know, lift glasses out of the cabinet. And so I asked my doctor, I'm like, I need some help. Medication isn't working. And so they referred me to occupational therapy, which thankfully referred me to Monica, who's in physical therapy, because I wouldn't have found her otherwise. Um, so I walk in, you know, on day one with Monica, and she changed my life. Awesome. I mean, I, you know, there's things like I'm getting emotional about it, but I couldn't breathe, I couldn't walk, I couldn't sit in a car without constant pain. You know the jarring of, you know, the potholes, or the jarring of my, my footsteps on the on the road, you know, would would hit my, you know, the places that I've had surgery and I just couldn't function. And she, she, she taught me how to walk again and sit in the car and breathe. And it changed my life. Amazing,

9:45
amazing. And did you have lymphedema in the chest at the same time too? Sherry, was there a few fluid accumulation there?

9:53
Yes, that was part of it, too. Is when. So when I first saw Monica, it was for that, you know. The pain and everything like that. And then, of course, as time goes on, as cancer progressed, I started a new chemotherapy, which was in her two months later. So then, as I'm in physical therapy with Monica, we're discovering all these things that are happening for the first time together, like I did get lymphedema in my torso. Whenever I would get the chemotherapy, my torso would swell and my stomach would swell, and I didn't realize at the time that my lymph system was so messed up from all the surgeries and the cutting and everything that it was like a clogged drain. And I didn't know that I needed help getting that, you know, getting that movement in my body. And so we kind of shifted. So Monica, you know, we did, you know, all of the, you know, the lymphatic drainage and everything like that. It shifted from, you know, working on pain to helping with the drainage to help with the lymphedema and the torso, and that helped move the chemo through my body faster, and so I felt better. And there are times when, you know, with the side effects from the chemotherapy, it wasn't, you know, is still intense nausea, and I can go into physical therapy with Monica with, you know, at the time, it was like a 10 or 11 on the pain scale of nausea, and she would take it down by half, just, just by doing the lymphatic drainage and that. I mean, that helped more than any drug that I had.

11:39
Amazing. So, Monica and Sherry, thank you so much for sharing all of that. And you know what? It's staying powerful and things that people would know, things I would never think about, like I wouldn't think nausea, let me go get physical therapy and see if that helps. Right? I think typically we think pain, surgery, injury, right? So Monica, why does that work? How was Sherry able to go after these surgeries? How do you teach someone, what does it mean to how do you teach them to sit differently so there's no pain and like, why does this work?

12:13
Yeah, so Well, first of all, I have to tell you that this woman over here, she's an amazing human being in every way, and it's been a journey for both of us. Actually, I have learned so much from her, just interchanging information and just life in general, and so it encompasses it all right? And I think that's when we miss a lot of the times, we compartmentalize the body on different parts of it, and it's all works together. And I think when we start looking at the body as a system, we start understanding that it's all intertwined, and then we can make pathways, literally speaking here, but yeah, so I met Sherry through her occupational therapist, like she said, and she was actually seeing her because of the pain and the myofascial restrictions, and They were working on the shoulder, but her occupational therapist told me, you know, there's more to it than just the shoulder. I don't know what else I can do and and I do have a background on chronic pain and lymphedema, mld and cancer rehab. So she said, Is there anything that you can think of so when we first met, I realized it wasn't just the shoulder, but the whole thorax and torso was full of adhesions and scar tissue. And obviously, you know, she was the condition because she couldn't move posturally. She was protecting so she was shorted on the front, so we have to start working with the soft tissue, the diaphragm, trying to move.

14:11
And then after that, we realized that,

14:16
you know, you have to move this body against gravity. And when you haven't been doing that for a while. You are weak, so you have to be able to strengthen. And she did an amazing job. She's like, everything that you tell her to do. She does everything and more and and she was doing amazing she was exercising. She was doing planks. I was like, Oh, my goodness. And as a therapist, you get very excited when you get a patient that does everything, and she's so doing it, and she has all this insight. And so I was, you know, with her together, we were learning about different things, but we had to, like, work on core pelvic stabilization, pelvic floor stabilization. And postural strengthening, posterior strengthening, anterior stretching, um, and then,

15:06
so I'm going to ask you something I want to stop before we get too far, like that, right there, what you just said is amazing, because here this woman says I had surgery on my breasts, I had surgery on my ribs, and you're saying pelvic floor, right? And so I think that this is like, Who would ever think, because we don't think about that kinetic chain and all the connections for the body, absolutely. So I'd love to hear so you said something a second ago about scar tissue and adhesions. Could you just help for people who may not understand that, what is an adhesion and how does that happen inside of us, and what can it result in?

15:44
Well, now we know from a I'm going to talk a little bit more from a cancer perspective, because, you know, we get adhesion from different issues, but we do develop anytime you will do surgery or you cut through connective tissue and soft tissue, you will develop adhesions. And when we are talking about the chest area, you know the adhesions on the scar tissue could also go into the visceral area as well. So like I do, see people that they have adhesions on the abdominal cavity and the whole intestinal tract gets involved, because the adhesions attach to the wall of the intestinal tract and GI tract, and then they decrease the motility of your intestinal tract, and therefore You will have issues with constipation and be you know, it restricts mobility of the bowel movement in terms let me

16:47
just ask you a question. Sorry to interrupt you, but you're fascinating me. Okay, so I could have a mastectomy or multiple surgeries in the checks reconstruction, and it could cause an adhesion that changes the way my digestion works. Absolutely, yes. So what is an adhesion? Is it one tissue sticking to another tissue? Is that why?

17:10
You know, sometimes I, I describe it. I mean, that's part of the facial system. But, um, when you, you know, when you peel a chicken, for instance, you have that clear, it's all connective tissue of different densities. That's what it is, right? So when you have a scar, it's going to be connective tissue that is not organized. So it's tough and hard doesn't have the elasticity that normal tissue has. So anytime that you, you know you have an insult to your system, such as, even if it's surgical, or, you know, an accident, whatever it is. So your your body is going to produce those adhesions and scar tissue some people, more than others. It varies from person to person, but, but for instance, I mean the role of the diaphragm, for instance, right? So the movement of the diaphragm is one of the most important things in terms of breathing, right? That's the first thing we do when we are born, and that's going to to help with the the vascular system and the lymphatic system. So when your diaphragm is tight because you have scar tissue from all the things that happen on the rib cage area, or it has become tight because you've been protecting or it has become tight because your nervous system has gone through so much that it's into the fight and flight mechanism. So now we're talking about the nervous system and the sympathetic nervous system. So that's gonna all affect all the organs, and also the diaphragm and also the soft tissue. So what all that does is to decrease movement, circulation, lymphatic flow. And as those systems become sluggish, it's going to impact everything. Now we know there is connections of the lymphatic system to the nervous system to the glymphatic system, which is your, you know, the lymphatic system in your brain. So when you go through something like chemotherapy that is going through, the whole system is going to affect everything that that is, which is kind of the goal of the chemotherapy, correct? You are trying to get all those bad cells and, you know, get rid of them, but it's also affecting the whole system at the same time. Yeah, so, and this

19:51
would be IV chemotherapy or oral chemotherapy, right? Anything

19:56
that is gonna go through your system. Yeah. So. Yeah, so I think, well, once we know that Sherry was going to be going through in her do and going through chemotherapy, and she was having all the symptoms of, you know, significant nausea and headaches and fatigue, you know, we knew that we have to move things. And it's, it's really sad that, you know, we have all these physical therapists, but we're not really doing that with patients with cancer. We are doing Cancer Rehabilitation, but we're not doing, necessarily, any type of manual lymph drainage for post chemotherapy, or not, at least not so much here in Duluth. I mean, we do do manual lymph drainage if someone has developed lymphedema after, for instance, you know, a mastectomy, and they have the one arm that is, you know, there's lymphedema, then we do that. Or sometimes we do post breast cancer, if they do have swelling on the breast area, or if they are developing a cording, you know, we do do that, but we, as far as I know, I don't know any therapist that it's doing lymphedema to address the lymphatic sluggishness post chemotherapy. I think they do in another place, but I'm not aware that we do that as a protocol anyways, in in Duluth, but, but one of her main complaints was a lot of nausea. It doesn't take too much to to think, well, you know, you, you have this whole, you know, I call it toxicity from chemotherapy. And although we want that to do its job, we want, wanted to get out of your system ASAP. If your system has gone through so much already, and it's having to do this every four weeks or three weeks at first and four and five weeks, you know, it needs a little help. Yeah, I think that was the idea of starting to do the MP on minor lymph drainage. But then, as she developed headaches and issues with her, you know, with headaches with I thought, Well, I do cranial therapy. We know that now it's fairly new, but we know that we have a system called glymphatics. They are a little bit different from the lymphatic system, because the glymphatics are part of the vessel system, versus in the case of the lymphatics, in the body, they are separate. You have the venous system, the arterial system and the lymphatic system, but in the brain, the lymphatic system is part of the vascular system, but the main role of that glymphatic system is again to clear toxicity and then to clean, to clean all the toxins and byproducts of dead cells, especially during The night, during the REM part of your sleep. So if we can assist the movement of the Well, the way it works, you have the spinal fluid, and then that is going to be dumped into the interstitial fluid, and that's kind of what the craniosacral treatment does. So if we can help the glymphatic to move into the the interstitial fluid faster, then we can get it rid of through urination.

23:56
So so

23:57
that would that impact chemo brain, like when people say, Yeah,

24:01
because that's what chemo brain is. Chemo brain is just the flooding of all these toxins that they're, you know, staying in your brain and and creating this, this issue. So then if you speed up, you know, the flow of this and just get it out of the glymphatic system is very important. I mean, there's not a lot of studies yet. I mean, for sure, sleeping right sleeping, especially between the hours of 11 and two o'clock in the morning, that's where generally REM happens. Although it's different for people, it's very important, because that's when we are cleaning up and flushing the brain, because that's the time that is the cerebral spinal fluid opens up its channels to be cleaned out and then so let's

24:53
just repeat, let's emphasize that for all you listening who are scrolling your phone until 12 o'clock midnight or one o'clock in the morning, right? Right? So your brain is actually cleaning itself from the hours of 10 to two, if you're asleep, correct?

25:07
Yep, it's, you know, that's what the research says right now. From 10 to two, that's the best time, and that's when you have concussions and things like that. We we emphasize to make sure you sleep during those times. But people are different. So you know, depending on the rhythm of that individual, it might change, but that's why sleep is so important for anything that has to do with your brain, but also with cortisol too, right? With anything that has to do with stress hormones. So, yeah, sleep is very, very important. It's part of also, you know, the treatment. And then also, we're talking about anything that has to do with calming the nervous system down, because it's all intertwined. Research that shows that being, you know, in nature, it does calm the nervous system down. It will decrease cortisol, and then it will increase dopamine and it will increase serotonin. It will just give you that calmness there. It will decrease the amount of rumination that we tend to do to when we are under a lot of stress, so doing all the things, plus adding, you know, cranial therapy and MLD to be able to, you know, you work, that glymphatic system between the the is cranial sacral. So we're talking about the whole sacrum, the spine, the cranial the brain, and then and then,

26:41
what is MLD? Sorry to interrupt, what is manual

26:44
lymph drainage. So it stands for manual lymph drainage. Generally, we start proximal, and that's when I was emphasizing the diaphragmatic breathing and breathing in general, because that's gonna kind of set on the lymphatics. The lymphatic system is different from the vascular system. So for instance, you know, we have to differentiate that, because sometimes they tell you, Well, just elevate. Well, elevation has to do more. It does help, because the lymphatic and the vascular system are connected to each other. But the, you know, the lymphatic system is a high protein edema. It's not like the vessels of your legs the venous system, that they have valves, and when they get inefficient, what if you sit a lot, or you stand a lot, and you know you are older and you're and the the tensile ability of the valve is weak. What happens is that you know the valve opens, the heart pumps, and you're giving direction to the flow. So if it's your legs, they're far away from the heart, so they have to go against gravity, and when those valves get weak, you will get more swelling. So that's why they tell you to elevate your legs above your heart. Now if you have congestive heart failure and you have edema, generally, it's on both legs, and it has to do more with the fact that the heart is sluggish and it can pump all that fluid, which is different lymphedema. So the treatment will be totally different. Not Want to be bandaging, and you don't want to be doing a lot of compression. If your heart is already tasked, and you do that, then it's going to put more pressure on the heart, but lymphedema is more of a high protein edema, so that's why we have to do the manual lymph drainage. We have to manually push that out. We have to compress it. It's kind of like having the beans that soak on on water, and they get filled up with fluid, and then we have to put the cheese cloth to be able to push that out, because water is gonna go to where the area that there's more concentration of proteins or beans, right? So it tries to normalize that. So you have,

29:12
what a great analogy. I love that. Yeah, so

29:15
that's why we use garments. If people is wondering, why do we have to use garments in lymphedema. That's the reason why we don't have really valves on the lymphatic system, and the concentration of protein makes the the water suck into the other side of the membrane, and it will not just go out by elevating your arm or your leg. You have to actually apply compression. You have the blood pressure in order to push the fluid out. And that is why, once you have lymphedema, you know, you do have it for life, because the system has gotten to that point and now it needs that compression in order to stay from you know. Swelling,

30:01
and why is that so? Well, before I go to that two questions, because when we said, I asked you, does this impact chemo brain, Sherry was emphatically nodding her head. She's like, yes, yes. So Sherry, you notice a big difference when you started to doing the craniosacral therapy and the lymphatic drainage?

30:18
Yes, I did. And that was unexpected, because we were, you know, I was focusing on getting the fluid out of my torso, but then the amazing, you know, benefit of that also, I noticed my, you know, each cycle of chemotherapy that I'm on keeps getting better and better and better as we figured out kind of how to manage this. And with the chemo brain, or the brain fog, I noticed right away that there's this difference, like it's not as heavy or or thick as it was, or cloudy as when I had first started with the chemotherapy. It was because it was like a there's almost like a physical veil, or something that was just settling over me, and I was, you know, more clear and how I was able to speak and find words. And, you know, with the brain, just the mental fatigue of the brain, I felt like was a lot, lot less after doing the the cranial sacral and everything, the lymphatic drainage, fascinating.

31:16
And so Monica, you're saying, that's the glymphatic system that's helping to drain the glymphatic system that helps with that.

31:25
That's correct, yeah. Okay, so, okay, so in the body, we call it lymphatic system, and what the lymphatic system does is kind of like the garbage collector, right? So, um, for instance, well, I don't know if I should be super technical, but why not? Sometimes, if you understand it better, you know? But what? Maybe just for me, but, but so it all the lymphatic system also helps with the immune system, right? So that's why, for those ladies that they have had lymphedema, you know, they tell you make sure that you know you don't get an infection and you don't develop cellulitis, because once you you know, like, for instance, if you are camping and you get beat up by a mosquito, and then you start scratching with dirty fingernails, you know, that area that has been compromised, that right arm, because they have, you have had radiation and then chemotherapy, and they have taken, you know, the lymph nodes on the right arm. What happens is that the lymphatic system is compromised, and therefore it doesn't have the ability to fight infection. So the way that lymphatic system works there, the there, there are agents that help with the infection in the fluid, but also they are filtered through the lymph nodes that they tend to conglomerate or in certain areas of your body, like your axillary area for the upper extremities, like the inguinal or the groin, for your legs, like the neck, your chest, the deep infect is of the abdomen. So in the same way they do that in the body, they also will clean up and clean the toxins in your brain, and that will be the glymphatics. So they have a very important role. Photic system, lymphatic system, is the same. They have the same function. It's just that anatomically, they present differently. And one is called the glymphatic in the brain, or the, you know, in your head, and then lymphatic in your body.

33:43
So I have a question for me. Personally, I have active cancer in a lymph node under my arm. I also have lymphedema from the tumor having been under there and other surgeries. Is it safe to do lymphatic drainage when you have cancer in the lymphatic system?

34:01
Well, I mean, that's something that, um, generally, when we first start treating and you are active, active cancer, generally, they don't want you to do a lot of moving things around correct, because you don't want to be spreading things around. Now, if it's a situation where it's been, you know, all there for a while and it's not active, then you can do that. However. You don't have to do all in that area. You can still do MLD, not right on the spot, but on the others areas of your body and your lymphatic system have, I mean, you're still your lymphatic system is still working, so that's still happening regardless. But you're right. I mean, if you have active cancer, and you know that, you know you don't want to spread, spread it. I mean. Don't have true studies that necessarily, that that will for sure spread, right? Yeah. We were told when we go through certification that, you know, if you have active cancer, you don't want to, you know, necessarily, go right there and start doing that.

35:18
Okay, yeah. So, for instance, I

35:21
changed however. You know, maybe there is more studies now that that's different, but that was a while ago. So,

35:28
yeah. So even if it were in the lymph node, auxiliary, auxiliary lymph node, for example, could you massage the arm, the forearm, like gentle lymphatic massage? You just wouldn't want to target an area where you knew there was cancer spot, right, right, and it would still help the lymphatic system overall, yeah.

35:46
And that is kind of what we do with lymphedema in general. So we try to bypass and create new pathways to the lymph to flow. So if yours is the right axillary area, we try to go into the right inguinal area. So that's okay. So the lymphedema, you are not going to try to go into the right axillary area, because that's where you are affected. So bypass it into the left side and right inguinal area, so you are going away from and you are kind of bypassing and creating another pathways for the lymphatics to flow, and not

36:30
necessarily your body is compensating right? You can teach other parts of the lymph that's compensate for what's not working right. That's, yeah, and

36:37
that's kind of the whole idea of doing manual lymph drainage, you know, you're trying to create new pathways to still move the fluid, because you have to move that fluid out of there, but creating new pathways that could be drained on different channels of different, you know, paths.

36:55
And what people, oh, go ahead. No, go

36:58
ahead. I was just gonna say, and I've seen that actually in action with me, you know, because in the beginning I couldn't, you know that that fluid wasn't moving without Monica's help. And now my body slowly and over time, rebuilding those pathways and getting it, you know, getting it stronger and everything too. It's like rerouted and and it's, it's doing things on its own that it didn't do months or years ago. So it's like, it's like teaching it, you know, Monica is teaching the, you know, my body really how to respond and and build new pathways, which, you know, it's still, you know, I still need help with that. But it's like, tremendously better than what it was prior. So it's like, it's really cool to see what she's talking about actually applied. I mean, in real life, this happened to me, you know, yeah,

37:52
that is so cool. And you had said in the beginning, like, she taught me how to breathe again, she taught me how to walk. What does that even mean? How do you teach someone how to breathe differently, and why would that impact pain like you. You use the term cheap, protected. You use that a couple times. You said you're protecting. What does that mean? And how does that impact us?

38:13
I think what Monica maybe correct me if I'm wrong, but by protecting, I was, you know, my shoulders were hunched. I was protecting my chest, because that was, like the most, you know, vulnerable part of my body at that time. So I was, like, unconsciously, even just, you know, crouching forward or hunching forward. I couldn't even straighten my shoulders or put my shoulders back at all before and so that, you know, that's kind of like protecting but then what was the first part of that question, Laura, I'm sorry.

38:49
So I was saying so with you had said she taught me how to breathe again. She taught me how to walk again. So what does that even mean? Like, Monica, how do you like if I came to you, I'm like, I've been 61 years old. I've been breathing this way forever. What does that mean? I don't know. How can I breathe differently?

39:04
Sure. Well, you know, the body is very smart, right? So sometimes a little too smart, maybe. So it's going to compensate, it's going to go so if there, I mean generally, when you have pain, you don't just stretch all the way out. And you know, I've seen that very little, generally, when there is pain, you just kind of shorten, you close, you protect with other parts of your body. You start using other parts of your body because you don't want to use that part of your body, and that starts to create a whole imbalance in every level. So, so there are, of course, you know, I mean, as as a therapist, you see injury, you see restrictions, and and they are, you know, there are two restrictions, so sometimes you can't, but there are good ways to compensate, and there are not so good ways to compensate. Sometimes we compensate. Say a little too much, and sometimes the compensation is not because of the physiological or the soft tissue. I mean, there are cases like Complex Regional syndrome, you know, you don't even touch the person, you just put the hand close by, and they have tremendous pain. You know. You know that is not a physiological pain. You haven't touched the person. Yeah, that's a neurological is your sympathetic nervous system? Is the nervous system just in high gear? Now I tell my patients, there is muscle tension and there is compensation or protective tension. I can help with a muscle tension, but the hypersensitivity of the nerve, the tension from guarding you've got to help me, because it's your nerves. We have to breathe. We have to tap into the parasympathetic nervous system, the relaxation, the feeling good, the letting go, and that includes the digestive system. For those of you that they have a lot of hypersensitive nerves, or your system is always heightened and you have a lot of digestive issues, the sympathetic nervous system affects circulation flow to all those organs as well, and that's why you got gastritis. You got, you know, Tommy pain, you got motility issues and vowel movement issues. So, so how do you work on that tension that comes from the nervous system a lot is education, so the patient knows, oh yeah, I'm not even touching that. So, so it's your it's your protective mechanism, you know. So it's okay. I'm not injuring anything here by doing this. The other thing is just breathing and starting to be able to relax. And like I said, you know, just exercising, going out, trying to relax your mind, because it's everything starts there. So it does so we ruminate, we we get anxious, we are worried. Every pain that we have or that it's cancer back again, you know, I mean, and if we think that that doesn't do anything to our system, let's think again. You know, things are chemicals are flowing, cortisol is going up. You know, circulation is decreasing. The lymphatic system is, you know, going weak. So, so it's very important to start with. We need to do that part too, and that part I can do other than educate you, that part has to be done by the patient, so to have the knowledge, and then to be able to stop yourself when you're ruminating and say, oops, I'm doing this again. Okay, let's take a deep breath and let's think about something that makes me feel good, whatever that is, or, Oh, I'm holding my shoulders up again. Okay, I'm gonna take a deep breath and I'm gonna cut that cycle. So then

43:17
we're finding myself taking deeper breaths as she's talking.

43:24
So I think a lot is that awareness and we get good at those things that we do the most. So if we are always protecting, always worry, always anxious, we're going to get really good at that, and we get trapped in this cycle, but if we are aware of that, and we can cut the cycle right there, because now we have the awareness, we can slowly change that cycle, and suddenly now we're walking up right we're breathing, we're relaxing, enjoying feeling more in not our body. And you know, we changed all that, and now we don't even remember that we had those problems.

44:08
That's awesome. Yeah. So Sherry, when you go to see Monica, you leave not only with some I'm imagining physical practices that you need to do to give to support that retraining of your body, but you're leaving also with mental and emotional practices to support it energetically

44:23
as well. That's so true, and it's nothing that I ever you know. I think I said earlier too. It's like, I don't know what I don't know. And so like, this sounds like common sense, but when you're applying it, you know, when you ask me, like, how, how does she help you breathe again? Or what does it feel like it just for me, it was, I was breathing so short and shallow, and I was not breathing fully into my diaphragm, into my stomach even, and I there was so much pain that I couldn't so then I was continuing to breathe in this just really short manner, which doesn't help my overall. Body anyway, but I didn't know that it could be different. Like, I didn't know that, like, Oh, I'm going to go to physical therapy and I'm going to, you know, all these wonderful things are going to happen. You know, it was just starting out really small, and then it kind of cascaded down from there too. It's like, Monica then helped me, like, realized that I was even breathing short and shallow. I didn't even realize I was doing that. Or, like, I didn't realize that I was standing with my shoulders hunched. Or when I walk like, I was, like, slapping my feet on the ground. It was so funny the first the first time I met Monica, she's told me to walk away from her and then walk back towards her. So I did and and then she mimicked my walk back to me, and it like she was slapping her feet on the ground. And she's like no wonder all of the pain that you have gets exasperated by the you know, by the movement and the slapping on the ground, or, you know, in a car with the the potholes and stuff, it's hitting all those sensitive areas because you're not bracing your body, you know. Or you're not if you stand on, you know, put energy in your toes and in your feet like you can actually walk in a more, you know, less josly way, and that, that was the first thing that, you know, led me to where I am now. It's like or in a car, or, you know, when you're sitting in the car, you brace yourself with your legs and your feet on the the floor mat of the car, so that you are supporting your rib cage and your torso, you know, if you, if you have, you know, surgical pain in your chest or wherever. But so like doing that and activating my leg muscles like that made it so much more comfortable for me to ride in a car, because I couldn't do that before more than, like, five or 10 minutes. And now I can, I can sit in the car for like 10 hours, which I wasn't able to do prior, just, you know, all of these things that you know, the pain you think, that you get used to, or that you think you know you can't see beyond it, because you're like, Okay, this is just how it is for me now, or my new normal or something, because that's what they tell you, yeah. But with this, there's a whole new way to live. And I didn't go in, you know, with that intent, but I came out of it with that, you know, it was, yeah, that's why I say it's life changing, because it just, it's not just about my body, you know, it's about my mind. It's about my, you know, my emotions, my mental state, everything. So it just, you know, gets me back to being the physical, active person that I was before cancer. Because we, you know, my partner, Brent, and I, we go into the Boundary Waters. We, you know, we, I ran marathons before I got cancer. And so there's active lifestyle was always part of my identity, part of who I am. And then with cancer and cancer treatment, I had to, you know, figure out what that looked like again. And so going to physical therapy brought back those things, and I'm able, you know, I went backpacking. We went backpacking in the Rockies and in the Grand Canyon this year, and I'm going into the Boundary Waters for the first time again next weekend. And these are things I'm able to do because of all that, you know, stacking each you know, successes with the physical therapy, with working on, you know, the body and the mind and things like that. It's just, it's incredible what space is opened up from physical therapy, and how this isn't like the magic wonder prescription that everybody gets, you know, when they have not even, they don't even need a cancer diagnosis. It's for absolutely everything,

49:04
right, right? That's so awesome. And Monica, that's got to help you feel good, I mean. And because Sherry, and not just the big like going into the Boundary Waters and hiking camping, but I can remember when you couldn't drive to see your mom, right? And, and so, because we're in pain and we don't know that there are other options out there and things that can support us, we start to make our life smaller and smaller to accommodate what we're told is this new normal, instead of which I love, what you said, Why is this not a part of everybody's team, right? Why, as soon as you get a cancer diagnosis, do you not get a physical therapist, a nutritionist, a mindset coach, like, why don't we have this team? Because it needs a team, right?

49:48
So important, agree, I don't like that phrase. This is your new you. What does now? I don't either,

49:57
sorry, but that's a bullshit, right there? Yeah? Oh. Nobody, nobody take that. No, that's bullshit, right?

50:05
She's it's just been amazing in every way. I mean, you can teach and do those things, but I mean, she just took it all in and went for it. And, I mean, she's one of the people that all these things keep happening to her, and she just keeps, you know, going through it, persevering, overcoming it, and then coming on the other side better than when she got all this awful things happen. So, so true. I mean, that's, that's also the reason why, you know, I mean, you can teach them things and do that stuff, but it's that individual, you know, the

50:47
Yeah, the strength that she has, and the

50:52
Yeah, just the love for life, you know, we

50:55
have to work,

50:56
work with her

50:58
always, Yes, always. And, you know, I think that's such an important thing, though, right? You have to do the work, the mental work, the physical work. Sherry, I know that on all levels. I know that when you came home, the exercises you had to do were not comfortable. It didn't feel good to do those when you got home, it doesn't feel good to do the emotional work and deal with the stuff comes up to change the mindset. And this is something that, you know, I work with them, with my clients all the time, right? And they'll say, this is hard, yes. Can we just say that out loud, yes, it is hard, and we have to get the support we need, and we have to love ourselves enough, and we have to say, this is not going to be easy. How do I set myself up for success? What support do I need? Is it's not easy, right? And, and I wish it was, I wish there was an easy button, but we really had to be committed. And sometimes it's physically and emotionally uncomfortable to heal a life and a body It just is. And Monica, I wonder. So I you know, obviously, when people go through breast cancer surgery, I think just about everybody has at least a sentinel lymph node removed. You know, there's like gonna always be some kind of invasion of the lymphatic system. And oftentimes I my clients are intimidated by exercise because they're afraid to get lymphedema. And so could you address that? Is it dangerous to exercise if you've had a lymph node removed? And should people be afraid of exercising? Or is that a myth?

52:32
Yeah, so when lymphedema, I mean, you can have, I have seen people that they had just an lumpectomy with a sentinel node biopsy, and they developed it. And I have people that they had a mastectomy, radical mastectomy, radiation and lymph nodes taken out, and they didn't develop it. So some people have lot of lymph nodes, some people have very few, and some people don't have any, but that's not, you know, the people that we are talking about. But so it depends on all the things. However, exercise actually will improve all of that. The only thing that I will say, though, if you do have lymphedema when you exercise, you are increasing vascular flow. Therefore, if because, like we talked about before, it's a high protein edema, it has to have the compression. So if you do already have lymphedema in your arm and you're going to exercise, you have to have your sleeve on, because as you have the sleeve on and you exercise against the pressure of the sleeve, you will have very good lymphatic drainage. However, if you don't have the sleeve, and you exercise a lot, and you are having a lot of vascular flows through your system, but there's nothing to the cheese cloth is not there, then it would swell more. So if you do have lymphedema, especially higher stages, you have to have some kind of compression when you exercise in order to maintain that drainage. Otherwise it will fill up.

54:22
So if you've had a lymph node removed, and you do not have lymphedema, but you do exercise, is there any benefit in wearing a compression sleeve from a preventative perspective?

54:34
Um, we, we generally don't do that for preventative if you don't have lymphedema, the only time that we have maybe, said maybe just in case, so you don't go over the threshold. If it's underlying and dormant, and we just don't know it, is if you fly for a long period of time, not two, three hours, but if it's like a four or five, six hours up in the air. Because. Is there's no atmospheric pressure. So even those of us that we don't have lymphedema, we will swell a bit in, you know, when we're up in the air, especially if we're out there for a long time. So if you don't have lymphedema, but you're not sure, and then you're gonna go to, you know, Japan or something like that, probably it will be a good idea to have a sleeve, just in case. That will be the only time I think that I will. But for exercising, it should be okay. I mean, you can, you know, you can generalize, generalize with things like that. You can see how it goes, you know, yeah, exercise and you're fine, then you're okay. I mean, you exercise and now your arm feels heavy and thick and feels kind of different. You know, maybe you want to keep an eye on it, survey it. From that's what I

55:57
do, that's, that's what I do. Um, for me, I wear compression tanks when I do like rigorous hiking or go on walks, or when we're in the Boundary Waters where I'm canoeing or fishing. I have a compression tank that, you know, starts right underneath my arm and goes all the way down to my stomach, and that holds my torso in so, like Monica was saying, too, like,

56:26
when I'm doing these, like, really physical activities,

56:30
it's holding everything, you know, it's stabilizing my rib cage and torso too, but doing all the good things that she was just saying as well. So, you know, while I don't wear a sleeve, I only wear a sleeve when I when I travel and fly, because I don't have lymphedema, lymphedema in my arm at this time, but the compression tanks, they make such a difference for me, especially when I'm in, you know, when I'm in heat, yeah, when it's warm out and everything, it's like, everything kind of swells a little bit When it's hot, you know, in the summer, and humidity in Minnesota, things like that. So, yeah, the compression tanks I found really helped me

57:08
awesome. What a great tip. We'll have to put a link to where you get your compression tanks in the show notes. Yeah, that's really interesting. So

57:17
the people that do have lymphedema find compression actually more comfortable than not, like, super hot and humid, then that's hard. But generally, if they do have lymphedema, I think most of the time I hear they like that compression, you know, than otherwise.

57:36
Yeah, I agree. It's like, sometimes you get it because it's irritating, like in the elbow crease, and so I'll just, like, rip it off, but within half an hour, I feel this weight on my shoulder, right? I can just feel the arm getting heavier, and it's uncomfortable, and when I put the compression sleeve back on, it helps to lighten that absolutely, yeah. So what do you think I'd love to get your insight for people who are listening and are in chemotherapy, if you could recommend a protocol that you think would be helpful to support someone in chemotherapy, would it be to how soon after a treatment, would you get physical therapy just to keep things moving?

58:18
Yeah, and that's what we have been doing with Sherry. That's not generally the normal protocol that we see most of the time, but patients can request that, and you just have to find a physical therapist that is certified in lymphede MLD that is willing to do that. And the people that I have seen to do that, they have all benefit from it. Most of the people don't do that. Part of it is because, you know, insurance or the the you know the way the oncologist or the cancer rehab team, they just don't offer it. So a lot of the times it has been that the patient had to request it, yeah, and then that there is a therapist that, you know, it's willing to do that and is able to do it, you know, that is knows how to do that, yeah,

59:22
so they would look for a MLD specialist, yeah, and physical therapy or occupational therapy to both of them, yes,

59:32
occupational therapies do that as well. So there are OTs and PTs that they're certified on manual lymph drainage, and if there is someone that does visceral manipulation in conjunction with myofascial release, in conjunction with cranial, you know, clean your sacral, that would be great, because then you you're covered in every area there we

59:55
get Monica on an airplane just fly around world working on

59:59
people. Yeah. Right?

1:00:01
I mean, if you lived in Duluth, you guys are lucky, but if not, you gotta get her removed to

1:00:06
you, yeah? And I'm sure that there's more and more, you know, therapies doing that now that we are understanding how it's all intertwined. So I'm hoping that we'll be there, you know, soon.

1:00:20
Oh, yeah. And for me, I was just going to say really quickly too, just to help with showing, like, what a schedule looks like. You know, I get chemotherapy on a Monday, and then I go in and see Monica on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So like, directly the date, not the day of, but the day after, is when I see Monica for the lymphatic drainage. And then I get extra fluids and steroids and anti nausea meds on that Thursday. And then after that, my body, my torso, tends to, you know, puff out just a little bit and get a little swollen from, you know, although that's gotten a lot less and less too over time. But then I see Monica in the afternoon. So it's like, you know, so Tuesdays, Thursdays, so usually twice a week is when I see Monica for, you know, each week. And then we were, as I get further away from chemotherapy, we can kind of address some of the other issues, like whether that's the headache or, you know, different things like that, like the facial release of like the torso and things. So it's like, we kind of, you know, we address the chemotherapy until it's all fully out of the system, and then we can address the other things too. So, and what I also do when I don't see Monica on my off days, I step on the vibration platform because that also stimulates the lymphatic drainage. So when I get home from chemotherapy, actually, that's one of the first things that I do now, is just to like, yeah, just I stand on there. I just do five minutes at a time, but because I want to still, you know, be gentle and everything with my body that day. And so I stand on there for five minutes, and then I try and go for a walk just to get everything moving so that I'm prepped and kind of ready when I see Monica on that Tuesday, and then she can really deeply address the other, you know, the lymphatic drainage and things like that.

1:02:20
Love it. Yeah, Monica, do you think, in your professional opinion, vibration plates, which I use? One? I mean, I know it's like a I love them. Do you think it's helpful for people to use those on a regular basis? What are your thoughts on those?

1:02:33
Well, it seems to me like anything that addresses stimulating the lymphatics, there's gonna be a positive effect. It could be jumping on a trampoline. It can be jumping on a ball, but not jumping, but, you know, bouncing on a ball with deep breathing, you know, with the breathing component. But like Sherry said, you know, I mean, right after chemo, sometimes all that is a little too rough to do, sure. So maybe, like the vibration platform is a little, you know, gentler to start with, or even, you know that. And then the breathing. I think the breathing is very important, no matter what I mean, that's one of the first things we teach as manual lymph drainage therapist, is to do diaphragmatic breathing. And just to start, you know, when you do that, you also start to stimulate the inguinal and auxiliary nodes as well. So things start to to move. So breathing is very, very important, yes, for everything you do, yeah, one more

1:03:40
question, because I could talk to you all day, and I know that you get back to your life, but I'm just curious, like, for people who have lymphedema and they've had it for a long time, is there anybody that couldn't be helped if they wanted to go get some physical therapy, if they had, you know, swallowing wherever, if they've been Dealing with lymphedema for a long time?

1:04:00
Yes, obviously it's so nice that now, you know, we have prehab, even meaning that we are educating, like in our at Essentia, we have, you know, prehab, not everybody, but some of the surgeons, or the doctors do do that, which is great where we are teaching them how to survey it, as we give them, you know, the exercises to do after the mastectomy or the lumpectomy. And also what kind of exercises, what kind of things to survey in terms of like lymphedema, but also cording. And then we also measure pre surgery so we know what the baseline is for possibility of lymphedema in the future. So that's really nice to be able to have that. However, I have also seen patients that you know they didn't have. Any of that many years ago. And obviously, you know when it's post 20 years, you know of surgery and lymphedema, and then nobody really understood lymphedema, and this patient will be complaining about swelling, but they don't. They didn't know what it was. So now they're all fibrotic, you know? So one Fibro once fibrosis sits on is a whole different ball game. But it's still it's still possible. I believe you have to do more bandaging, to be able to break down the fibrosis with different types of foam, probably some with different types of density of foam, to be able to break that down. So it's just, it's not just sweating at this point. Now, it's talking, you know, break down the fibrosis, and there's already keratosis and skin changes, and it's much more involved, but it's still possible. I've seen it where they still can soften, they still can, you know, get smaller, and then they have to wear the compression. What is hardest sometimes is when they are so full of adhesions. And scar tissue in the chest area that is just really hard to, you know, even manually release that. So the outcome, when it's like 20, 3040, years of post, you know, bilateral mastectomies that they never were addressed. That will be a little difficult. But when it comes to lymphedema, I mean, it's still possible. You still can decrease the fibrosis. It's a process, but you can soften the fibrosis and then decrease that and then manage it better. Because, like I said, when you continue to have lymphedema to that degree. The the main thing about lymphedema, you know, is the cellulitis. Once you get cellulitis, it does once you get it, once it goes up exponentially the amount of times that you get it. So you do want to address it to prevent any kind of, you know, disposition to infection,

1:07:26
and it doesn't take much, right? So I had cellulitis, and it was from a literally, like, walked by, like a aloe vera plant, and the tip poked me on the arm. And the next morning, I I had a purple, bumpy, swollen, excruciatingly painful arm. Like, cellulitis is no joke, right? And so anytime I'm around anything that might scratch as well, I wear this 24/7 anyway, but I'm like, super careful to protect that arm, right? Cellulitis is scary.

1:07:57
Yeah, that's, I will say, that's the only one scary thing about, you know, sometimes you you see these big arms, and people get kind of scared, but that can be treated, you know, that can be reduced, that can be treated. I will say cellulitis is probably the most dangerous side effect of

1:08:17
lymphedema. Yeah. So is there anything that I haven't asked you, that you would like people who've been through breast cancer surgery and treatment to know that they could do for themselves, whether it's from lymphatic drainage or pain management or movement or functionality or anything. What would you like them to know is available?

1:08:36
Well, I will say,

1:08:40
like I said before. I mean, there is Cancer Rehabilitation. It's been, what, 10 years now, maybe or eight years, there was a big push for that. So a lot of different big systems in the United States. We, we, I mean, we have to go through quite a hefty studying of, you know, different types of cancer, and lot of us, we have gotten certified on that to be able to treat cancer rehabilitation. So as therapies that we've been certified on, that we are, you know, there are quite a few of us, but there hasn't been a lot of referrals, I guess, I'm not sure why, because we have educated, you know, the oncologist surgeons, but there's you know, and even the patients. Sometimes you know, when you're going through, through the whole cancer journey, when you're going through that cancer rehab is not in the forefront of your mind, you know. I mean, that is not the most important thing, you know. You're trying to figure out, you know, what's going to happen, what kind of surgery? I mean, is it going to be chemo? Is it going to be radiation? So that, and you. Know, so that's not in the forefront, but generally, what people suffer the most afterwards are the consequences of not necessarily the cancer, but the cancer treatment. So so they have the ability to advocate for themselves and say, You know what? I have these problems, and I'm not this is not my new me, and I'm just gonna live with this. There are, you know, ways to overcome that, that they are not invasive. You know, a lot of them, they are not even invasive. So it's good to do that, I think, to advocate for yourself and then ask questions, hopefully. You know, there, there are people that they can do that close to you, or they should be, like I said, there's a lot of us that we got certified on that so, but again, if we don't utilize those skills, because there's no referrals we can see too, right?

1:11:00
Yeah, yeah, you know,

1:11:02
yeah. But even if it's not on the forefront of your mind, know that this information, it could make it a less miserable experience. Yes, you're doing it, right. Yes.

1:11:13
Have to necessarily live with all those symptoms that you thought that there was no other way out. There are ways out. I'm not saying that always, but most of the time you can and most of the time is something that you can do, and it really makes your quality of life much better, or at least knowing those things, it calms your mind. You know, you won't be thinking, oh my goodness, cancer is back again. You know, maybe it's something else related to the cancer treatment, and that alone, it just improves the way you think, or the take away those panic attacks, you know that, oh my gosh, you know, is that cancer again now? Or at least you have someone you know as physical therapists, we have a little more time than the doctor, so you know, we're able to kind of talk through those things a little bit more and be an advocate for you as well.

1:12:14
So, yeah, use us.

1:12:17
Yes, use them. For sure. I love

1:12:20
it. I tell I talk about Monica all the time. You know, whether it's with my oncologist or, you know, whichever doctor I'm with, like to make it known that she's part of my treatment plan, that physical therapy is part of the plan, like that, that's a non negotiable. So whether that, you know, they have to figure it out, to code it correctly for insurance, or, you know, to get the referral in the first place. You know, it's, it's really, the more I talk about it with all my different teams and everything like, the more they're understanding and acknowledging that, yeah, it is part of, you know, my oncologist now totally gets that physical physical therapy. It's part of my plan. And I talk to the infusion nurses every time I have chemotherapy, and I tell them about, you know, all the benefits of physical therapy too. So it's like, you know, just trying to spread that word that yeah, because I didn't know before. And so it's like, it just would love everybody didn't know that,

1:13:21
yeah, yeah, shout it from the rooftops, right? And I think what you said, Sherry is so important we can emphasize it doesn't have to be wait till you have courting or because I have this certain thing is that I'm going through this, and this treatment overall will impact my entire body, and I want support through physical therapy as I go through it, right? But it doesn't have to be one specific injury or or thing to look at. It's overall wellness. Yeah, again, we come back to supporting the terrain, treating the terrain, because that's what gives us the quality of life, right, right?

1:13:53
Yeah, and yeah. And I think the more we advocate for that ourselves, you know, that's where the strength is gonna be. You know, we need the numbers.

1:14:04
Yeah, well, that's true. That's an important thing to address, though, and say, because it's like a while ago, I did a podcast because I work with some non profit agencies and they offer grants, but women talk themselves out of applying for the grant money because they feel like, I'm taking it from somebody else. It's like, if you guys don't apply for the grants, then the people who donate the grant money will stop donating it, because they're like, it's not doing any good, right? So when we have insurance allowing us access to physical therapy, and we're not getting physical therapy or asking for the referrals, then how long will we continue to have that wonderful benefit of being able to access physical therapy, right? So, yes, use it, right? That's right. Know the value that it has 100%

1:14:50
yes. So thank you, Laura for doing this too.

1:14:54
Yes. Thank you. And anybody who lives in Duluth, I'm going to put Monica's contact information. Guys need to head on over and ask your doctor if you can go see her. So Monica Jerry, thank you so much. I really think this information is just so incredibly valuable. And again, you know, in a cancer diagnosis, and Monica, you said so beautifully, right? We get thrown into the spin. There's a tremendous amount of fear the standard of care conventional medicine is a fear based system, and we don't know that. There's so many things we can do that empower us to help ourselves to feel better, beyond surgery, chemo and radiation, right? But there are so many tools. Yeah, you said it, Laura, okay, friends, if that doesn't motivate you to check out physical therapy, ask for a referral, see how you can be helped. I don't know what will physical therapy is that it is a therapeutic, healing modality, and it can offer so much relief for us. So I hope that you've heard a nugget, a kernel in this episode that maybe you needed to hear to support you in your ability to feel comfortable and pain free or as pain free as possible in your body, and to seek out the support that can help get you there. All right, friends, thank you so much for listening. If you need more support with metabolic health or your mindset. Come to my website, the breast cancer recovery coach.com, where you will find my metabolic health and mindset membership better than before breast cancer and many of my standalone programs that you can do yourself in your own time, that can support you in working on your mindset around the life you want to create, around the health that you want to get more connected to, and in understanding different things, from nutrition to really managing the very short 168 hours that we have in every week of life, and how to make the most of them so your life is full of the joy you want To create. All right, the breast cancer recovery coach.com Do what you need to do to have the happiest life, a life that's better than before, breast cancer, and I'll talk to you again next week. Take care.