My Mothers fight continues

My name is Jayde and 4 Years ago my Mother was diagnosed with Breast Cancer which required lymph nodes to be removed as they were cancerous. After the long painful and what made her feel stripped of her womanhood fight with cancer she unfortunately developed lymphodoema in her right arm. She was lent a Sequential Intermittent Pneumatic Compression Pump to borrow from the hospital for a total of 6 weeks. In those 6 weeks she was happy, in a lot less pain and her arm swelling was reduced significantly. She was able to do activities with her grand babies, pick them up when they needed a cuddle, and cradle them to sleep. Once she returned the machine in just 2 weeks all the work she had done with the machine over the past 6 weeks had come undone. She is now back to having a very sore swollen arm that effects so many things we find “normal” which I’ll give you a peep into in a second.

My mothers arm has an extra 2 kilos of sub cutaneous fat and fluid in it. To give you an idea of what this is like both mentally and physically here are some issues she faces daily.

- Neck and back are constantly in pain due to the extra weight.

- It is now winter again and she has to wear compression bands from her shoulders to fingertips, blankets to stay warm as coats and jackets don’t fit her arm. Even ones that are many sizes too big.

- She has trouble hugging and showing affection to my children( her 3 grand babies) properly as her arm has trouble bending, lifting, holding.

- She can’t do “small easy” tasks such as scratch her back if it’s itchy, can’t lift her arm high enough to use a back scratcher.

- Working is completely out of the question as it’s hard to find a company that is understanding of her disability.

-She has major difficulties picking something up and keeping a hold of it, she will drop it without realising

So many more things play a huge part in this and it’s a major mental load. No one including myself could ever start to understand the mentally this disease makes you have every single minute of every single day. My mother just wants to be free of this disease and to hold and play with her babies again. Unfortunately she has been told she will never be cured. The only thing left to do is Prevention and controlling and be able to help her do so we need to buy her a Sequential Intermittent Pneumatic Compression Pump. Which cost roughly $2100. This machine will help keep the swelling at the a minimum and she is required to use this pump twice a day.

Anything anyone is willing to donate will be a massive help to help mums arm. I COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND how hard things are right now and that is the exact reason I am reaching out to get help. Today’s economy is just ridiculous. I wouldn’t feel okay with myself if I didn’t at least try and reach out for help for my Mother. She is the type of person who never asks for anything like this and is a very private person so that is why I am here trying my best to do the most I can for her.

Thank you kindly for reading

— I Love You Mum