SUDDENLY, WHAT once was within easy reach seems to be moving away. The walls are higher, the floor lower. Your upper body feels as rigid as a statue, yet as fragile as a figurine.
As any breast cancer survivor can tell you, range of motion - in the arms, shoulders, chest and back - often returns slowly and painfully after surgery. Where there is scar tissue and tightness, there is apprehension and fear.
"The muscles become tense and hardened," said Susan Rosen, who was diagnosed with stage two breast cancer three years ago. "You need to be moving to regain that flexibility."
Rosen, 58, had turned to yoga 15 years ago for chronic shoulder pain. This time, after a mastectomy and chemotherapy, she was again relying on it to hasten a recovery impeded by physical, mental and emotional barriers.
At first, she had to drag herself out of bed and crawl on the floor. "When I felt energetic enough, which wasn't often, I would do my breathing and restorative poses," she said.
The poses helped her open her chest area and gain flexibility in the armpit. They helped her to relax her neck and facial muscles. Moreover, they empowered and inspired her.
As a certified yoga instructor, she had something to share with breast-cancer survivors who struggled with the same anxiety and tentative, constricted movement.
"Most women are not sent to physical therapy after surgery unless there is a specific problem such as lymphedema," Rosen said. "There is nothing for them. Women with breast cancer were calling me, some I didn't even know. They were wondering what they could do for the discomfort they were having a year or two later."
The next thing she knew, Rosen was talking to a filmmaker neighbour about a yoga video designed for breast-cancer survivors. Titled "Yoga and the Gentle Art of Healing," it was released last year.
Recently, she began teaching her first series of yoga classes for breast-cancer survivors in San Diego. Don't expect anything vigorous or physically demanding in this nurturing, comforting setting. These are strictly restorative poses, as Rosen calls them, emphasising breathing with a relaxed diaphragm and easing back into the natural rhythm of movement.
"If you stick with the restorative poses, that's enough to help with the chest," she said. "But it's something you have to do every day, especially during radiation treatment. Just doing the poses is a form of meditation. It slows your mind."
Ideally, the discomfort of scar tissue and the gripping feeling in the chest area will be relieved through consistent practice. By then, Rosen hopes, many of the women will be ready to embrace the classic, Iyengar yoga that she has taught for nearly two years.
"Everybody has a different degree of flexibility," she said. "You go as far as you can without hurting yourself. I teach Iyengar using props blocks and belts that help you adapt to a pose."
Rosen, 5 feet 7 inches tall and 145 pounds, insists she is no more naturally flexible than many of the beginners she encounters.
"You're actually safer with a tight body," she said. "You know your limitations and are less apt to hurt yourself when stretching."
The message, to breast cancer survivors and students of all backgrounds, is the same: It doesn't
hurt to heal.
- Jack Williams, Copley
News Service
