DUBAI // Angie McCann has spent the past nine months in pain and unable to move freely in ways many of us take for granted. Just reaching into the cupboards or carrying shopping was a task too much.
Mrs McCann, 46, is recovering from breast cancer. She has undergone a series of operations, beginning with a mastectomy, and follow-ups including a tram flap reconstruction using muscle from her right abdomen to reconstruct her breast.
She was blighted by the resultant scar tissue and was unaware of the hindrances it was presenting, mentally and physically.
The British expatriate, speaking as Breast Cancer Awareness month was beginning, turned to a rehabilitation therapist, Keith Littlewood, based at Scandinavian Health and Performance. She was desperate to be free of pain and fully mobile and within six weeks saw more change than she could have dreamt was possible.
“I wish I’d heard about Keith sooner. I wouldn’t have spent nine months in pain and so restricted,” she said.
“Pressing down on the scar tissue, you’re changing the brain to how it’s supposed to function,” Mr Littlewood said. Because of the scars “Angie found it really hard to move and her energy was being compromised because there was so much effort just getting the body to move”, he said.
Mrs McCann had suffered symptoms including chattering teeth and fatigue as her body battled on all fronts to recover.
“Some women grieve for their breasts [after the mastectomy] but I hadn’t shed a tear until I had this treatment,” she said. “In a way, it moved me forward.”
She has now gone from being able to do very little to walking about 160 kilometres during September.
“It’s a really big deal for me,” she said. “Since I’ve been seeing Keith, I’ve been sleeping, after three years of being a bit of an insomniac, which in itself makes you feel better. I’m brighter and happier and I’m a different person.”
Mr Littlewood used movement-analysis techniques to find where Mrs McCann was restricted. Among the movements he analysed were touching her toes and reaching her arms overhead; she could do neither. Next he had to teach the body its old, natural movement patterns, those it knew before the surgery.
“The body has created a system to get her moving,” he said. “Up until now, the reason she’s had so many aches and pains is because it was moving through the path of least resistance. But by deducing what the problems are you can change it with the right input. Now she can even touch her toes.”
Mrs McCann is now pain free.
“That’s the big deal for me,” she said. “I’ve also been incorporating Keith’s tips on nutrition, which have helped because I have more energy. Even reaching for a glass, I’d move very slowly and carefully so I got into a pattern of stiffness, which I can see now.
“This approach has changed my life. I hadn’t even considered that I probably needed rehab and nobody after the surgery had told me this.
“You’re wrapped up in the cancer thing and trying to survive that and I hadn’t made that link between what was happening with the scars and what was happening to me.”
The physiotherapy has changed Mrs McCann’s life.
“Daily tasks such as cooking and shopping are so much easier and I feel more confident and stronger, both mentally and physically. I want to encourage other women to seek these alternatives, knowing this can really help, and that was with one session a week for six weeks.”
mswan@thenational.ae
