Surviving and Thriving After Breast Cancer

Three years ago, after breast cancer surgery, Sherry Lebed Davis couldn’t raise her arms above her shoulders without crying in pain.

One recent day at a Seattle hospital, she stepped into the middle of a room and swung her arms in a wide circle, raising her hands above her head.

A group of women matched her every move, following her lead as Davis bent her knees in a graceful plie. They lifted their arms, extending them to either side as the Five Satins crooned “In the Still of the Night” from a portable tape player.

The women joined Davis’ program, “Focus on Healing Through Movement and Dance for the Breast Cancer Survivor,” because it heals in more ways than one. It combines the movements of physical therapy with the emotional benefits of a support group.

“I have not seen another program so well suited to breast cancer survivors. It’s unique,” said John Martinez, director of the Complementary Medicine Center at Philadelphia’s Foxchase Cancer Center, where Davis introduced her program in April.

As she trains hospital staffs across the country to run her dance program, Davis pursues a larger goal: reminding the medical establishment that breast cancer patients need support long after surgery, radiation and chemotherapy.

Their bodies have been permanently altered, yet many women are not told about lingering effects that can include persistent fatigue, pain and tightness around the shoulder, and a dangerous swelling condition called lymphedema. Often no one tells them how much to exercise.

“Once we’ve survived, we’re dismissed,” Davis said, relaxing after her class at Evergreen Hospital Medical Center in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland.

Davis’ dance classes bridge the gap between surviving breast cancer and feeling OK again--a gap that Delia Mooney knows can loom large.

Mooney, 39, is a down-to-earth mother of two who now jokes her way through the dance routine. But when she started the class in January, she was shocked at how hard Davis’ simple moves seemed.

She hadn’t expected the pain and stiffness to last so long after her lumpectomy in April 1998. She also didn’t know that simple activities such as pulling weeds with her surgery-side arm could cause lymphedema, a risk that Davis tells her students about.

“This is something I really need to be doing,” Mooney said. “I’ve really improved range of motion with my right arm, and I just really feel good when I leave the class.”

Davis, 53, a former professional dancer, started the program in Philadelphia after her mother had surgery for breast cancer in 1979. Her mother stayed 10 days in the hospital with her arm clamped to her side, then came home to find she couldn’t reach up to brush her hair. She fell into a deep depression.

Davis and her brothers, both doctors, created a series of dance exercises to help their mother heal. The results impressed their mother’s physician so much that he asked Davis to teach the exercises to other breast cancer patients.

Davis, then running a dance studio, created a program based on her mom’s regimen and taught it in Philadelphia for eight years at Albert Einstein Hospital. Researchers there documented the clinical success of the classes: Women who participated improved flexibility and strength in their affected shoulders, experienced less pain and stiffness and had fewer problems later in their recovery.

The program fell by the wayside when Davis moved to Seattle to concentrate on a new career in sales. Then, in 1996, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and realized how important her dance program could be. The pain after surgery was terrible, and she began to fear that her body might never return to normal.

Her interest in dance and cancer survival took on new urgency.

Davis updated the program with medical advice from her brothers and began teaching it in Seattle. Soon she was training other instructors, and now five hospitals and one health club around Seattle offer her program.

She has taken her show on the road to Oregon, Montana and Pennsylvania, and she’s planning trips to hospitals in New York, California and Illinois. Her program also is available on videotape, produced by a nonprofit group called Enhancement Inc., of Morrow Bay, Calif.

Retired from paid work, Davis considers herself lucky to have a husband who supports her goal of spreading the program nationwide. She doesn’t charge hospitals or students for the program, though the hospitals cover her travel expenses, and some hospitals charge students a small fee for the dance rooms and instructors’ time.

The full program takes six weeks, with classes once a week. Some women complete one program and then drop it or continue on their own at home, Davis said. Others come back for years.

Three years after her surgery, Davis still feels the stiffness settling into her shoulder if she skips a week of exercise.

“You just say, ‘When is it going to be over?’ The thing is, it’s never really over,” she said. “But it’s better than not being here. If you have to exercise the rest of your life, feel fortunate that’s all.”

Davis’ program is a blend of physical therapy, chorus line and coffee klatch. During her class at Evergreen Hospital, women chatted about baldness and diets, radiation burns and white blood cell counts.

Geri Robnett, 61, shyly pulled off her dark red wig to show fellow student Mooney her short gray hair, just growing back after chemotherapy.

“It looks great!” replied Mooney, her own hairdo still abbreviated after cancer treatments.

Robnett remained doubtful, insecure about going wigless in public. But Mooney encouraged her, sharing confidences about her own crew-cut tribulations.

Robnett retired last summer after 30 years as a teacher, harboring dreams of pursuing her passion for amateur ballroom dancing--tango, fox trot, quickstep, waltz.

Then, last fall, she was diagnosed with cancer in both breasts. Radiation treatments left her heart permanently off-rhythm, and now she can’t walk 20 feet without stopping to catch her breath.

As she took her place in front of Davis, and the music revved up to the beat of Cher’s “Believe,” Robnett rubbed her shoulder in pain. She strained to follow the simple steps, and as her breath quickened, Davis cautioned her to take it easy.

But Robnett pushed herself to the end, when the women performed a short dance routine they’d been practicing every week. As the music swelled to a crescendo, signs of Robnett’s pain disappeared. She shimmied her hips and put an extra flourish into her arm lifts as she step-kicked through the finale.

As the dancers took their customary bow, Robnett was exhausted--and elated.

“You did great!” Davis said.

“That felt really good,” Robnett said.

The next day she felt sore and tired. But within a week, she went to the grocery store without her wig for the first time. And she knew she’d be back for more dancing.

“It helps you feel not isolated,” Robnett said. “After the class, I was so proud of myself. I had this wonderful feeling that I wasn’t hopeless anymore.”