We often think about the recovery from breast cancer and most often hear about surgery, chemotherapy and radiation.  My wife is now 2 years past her surgery.  It is easy to look at the rehabilitation and the treatment as trivial but it is a battle.  The scars still exist and are a reminder of the trying time we went through.  The piles of pills and the monthly shots will continue.  The pills will continue for another 3 years and the black and blue bruising elephant shot will go for one more year.

Part of the surgical process most breast cancer victims have involves the use of alloderm which helps regenerate tissue in the recovery process.  The result is an intact acellular matrix of natural biological components that promotes rapid revascularization, white cell migration and cell repopulation.  The problem with most women is that this results in what is known as rippling caused by the scar tissue.  Many women are taught to massage their breasts after the surgery, but this has met with mixed results.  Recently the Graston Technique has been introduced.  It uses medieval looking tools which vibrate against the skin as it runs over the rippling area. 

Please see the attached story and video:

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/health&id=7879903

The story features both my wife’s therapist, Julie Wong, and my wife’s cancer surgeon Dr. Shelley Hwang.