Teresa Postma was just 37 years old when she was diagnosed with Breast Cancer.
"Physically I noticed some changes and said I need to go in and get checked out and I pretty much knew right away that it was going to be cancer," says Postma.
After chemotherapy, surgery, more chemo, 36 weeks of radiation and a year of a drug called herceptin, Postma won the battle.
"It was a long road. It felt like a long road," she says.
What the mother of five year old Thomas and seven year old Elizabeth didn't know is that a new challenge would appear in the distance. To get rid of her cancer, doctors removed her right breast along with thirteen lymph nodes. But her remaining lymph nodes failed to take over and she ended up with Lymphedema, an incurable disease that develops when lymphatic vessels are removed. Lymph fluids accumulate in the body, causing arms and legs to swell dramatically.
"It just wasn't able to get out and the lymphnodes were just overwhelmed by the amount of fluid that is produced in my body and in my arm and it wasn't reversible," adds Postma.
"Lymph fluid is constantly coursing through your body so it isn't like you are going to make it go away," says Karine Carpenter with the Rapid City Regional Rehabilitation Institute.
Carpenter works with Lymphedema patients at the institute. She says patients can become disheartened when diagnosed with a lifelong disease that requires constant maintenance.
"The frustration initially is just like one more thing that you have to deal with
after all that you have gone through," she says.That one more thing can severely limit activity. Postma wears a compression sleeve all day long to keep pressure on her arm and keep fluid from building up. She says she can no longer lift her kids or even push a full grocery cart because her arm will begin to swell.
"There are a lot of no's. No more of this, no more of that. No more of so many things that I had loved to do," says Postma.
For a while Postma struggled to even talk about her condition with others.
"They always ask you, 'How you doing, How are you doing,' and you know they want to hear, 'I'm doing great.'" she says.
But it's an answer she wasn't ready to give.
"Its just sapping the quality of my life out of me and I was like, 'What's up with this?' And I was really mad, really angry with the term lymphedema and the changes it meant I had to make," replies Postma.
"Most people once they understand how to manage it and they feel in control they are a lot happier," says Carpenter.
When Postma felt surrounded by what she calls closing doors, she had to make a decision.
"You know when that door is closed, you are in the room and you have to look around in that room because going outside is not an option anymore. And its amazing what you can find," Postma says.
The forty year old is now into music and just talking about playing different instruments puts a big smile on her face.
"I can play the flute and I can strum the guitar for about fifteen minutes before my hand starts cramping up," she says.
Postma also doesn't mind not being able to do some things.
"Its too bad I can't shovel anymore," she says.
She's had to give up on the dream to play the piano; instead, she's focusing her energy on learning to be a graphic designer. And she encourages others with the limiting disease to look around for what else they could be passionate about.
"Passion can be created and looking and seeing inside and what you want to do. You are kind of forced to look into some other areas than would seem natural," she says.
Postma says support from her family has helped. She says her five and seven year old do more chores than most twelve and thirteen year olds.
