GRAND RAPIDS - An estimated 280,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in the United States this year, and for those who have mastectomies as part of their treatment many will decide to have breast reconstructive surgery afterward.
A Grand Rapids exercise studio is helping these women learn to use their new muscles because when a plastic surgeon reconstructs a breast, they either remove part of your stomach muscle or part of your back muscle, but after doing that patients need to retrain those muscles to work in another part of the body. Unique Physique fitness trainer April Snowcraft designs exercise programs for patients who have undergone breast reconstructive surgery, "Some range of motion due to the surgery itself is going to stifle them a little bit." Jan Wabeke is a five year breast cancer survivor she's had muscle removed from both her back and her stomach. April has modified her workouts to accommodate the loss of muscles in those areas, "I'm still kind of feeling it on the left. And the reason why is because of your surgery you don't have those muscles there anymore so that's why your feeling it one sided." Michelle Heys lost the range of motion in her right arm because her reconstructive surgery used muscle from her back, "You can feel if you were to move your arm to the right side or your breast muscle in the front I can feel it in my back." April works on stretching that newly placed muscle to eventually give Michelle more range of motion in her right arm. Two women, two separate exercise regimens designed by April, ?We've been trained in recovery for breast cancer patients which teaches us what to do what not to do." And that's what Jan says makes her recovery from breast reconstructive surgery more productive, "For me its helpful that April has had that training so she knows some of my limitations and things that I maybe can't do because I'm missing some of those muscles so you wouldn't normally have that in a regular gym so for me that's been helpful."
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