Breast cancer survivor shares experience
9:26 p.m. Wednesday, April 9, 2008
A breast cancer survivor who was vigilant about exams and had been under the microscope several times tells us her story of how you can never be too careful.
The word Yoga means one with the class of students moving in one direction together. For Lynda Davis, she's moving in a positive direction.
"You come out of this a changed person," she said. "You let things go, there's so much that doesn't matter. Chill out, relax and enjoy life ."
Two years ago, Lynda found out she had breast cancer.
"I looked at him and I said, 'Okay, I've heard cysts, I've heard calcification, I've never heard cancer before'. You know, the three c's. I've had biopsies before and I just thought this is just one more."
But this final biopsy did come back as cancer. During four months of chemotherapy and 36 radiation treatments, she was too tired to do the yoga classes.
"I did a little shuffle, just walking slow like a 100-year-old person walking down the street," Davis said.
Once she regained some energy, she was back on the mats.
Allan Foster, her yoga instructor, says she's made improvements in the last two years.
"She's gotten probably a lot more relaxed and more able to concentrate on what she's doing," Foster said. "Another thing that trauma causes, it blows your concentration."
Lynda says the moves she does in yoga have helped her recovery.
"When you have lymph nodes removed, it affects everything down your arms so you can't do this because it's all tight. "
But the benefits of yoga aren't just about strength and flexibility.
Allan Foster says, "When you have a traumatic event like a surgery, you have fear and strong emotions that go along with that. You try to push your body away."
Lynda now approaches each day, thankful for her yoga practice and the friends who helped her through.
"I had no idea how many...gonna make me cry...They were just marvelous," she said.
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