Listening to the Stories of Others: Global Edition

Rachel's Story

Rachel developed lymphedema during breast cancer treatment. In the video below, she talks about how it felt to get the diagnosis of lymphedema and being faced with having to wear a compression garment for 18 hours each day.

Rachel opened up to her lymphedema nurse specialist about her struggle with the compression garments.

With the lymphedema nurse specialist’s help, she found a compression garment that was more suitable to her needs and it changed the way Rachel viewed managing her condition.

She has suffered from recurrent cellulitis as a complication of her lymphedema. This has resulted in Rachel being hospitalized on more than one occasion in intensive care for sepsis related to her cellulitis. She explains the impact this has had on her and her family.

To read more about the complications of lymphedema, click here.

Despite all the challenges Rachel has faced, she focuses on the positives and encourages others to do the same. Her advice is to be “open to change” and to “think about what you can do, not what you can’t do”.

Rachel has not made any changes to her lifestyle and still does all the things that she used to do such as dance and enjoy vacations.