Roblin woman seeking surgery

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This article was published 27/07/2017 (3205 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Linda Hansen beat stage three cervical cancer in the late 1990s, but she has been living with a painful and disheartening side-effect ever since.

The Roblin woman has been living with lymphedema since 1999. The condition causes the swelling of the soft tissues in a limb because lymph fluid cannot flow normally and it builds up. It is a repercussion of dozens of radiation treatments Hansen endured.

“It’s the size of an elephant leg,” she said of swelling that has tripled the girth of her leg. Her leg carries an additional four to five litres of fluid, she has been told.

For years, she has been on a heavy medicine regime prescribed by doctors. Despite this, her left leg still hurts, making even quick strolls a struggle. She has seen maybe a dozen physicians who told Hansen that she’s stuck “living with it.”

Yet, she never lost hope. She clung to a glimmer of hope months ago when she stumbled upon a possible solution. She overheard a doctor during a phone conversation with a staff member at the clinic, suggesting the Mayo Clinic in the United States might be able to help.

She found out about the non-profit medical practice and later visited the clinic in Rochester, Minn. She scheduled a surgery for early July, with the belief Manitoba Health would pay most of her bill.

But shortly before the procedure, the province withdrew its financial backing. Instead, they directed her to a surgeon in Quebec, who might be able to solve her issues.

“Whether or not he’s going to be able to do something, I sure hope so,” Hansen said. “It’s a pretty horrific disease.”

The mother of three is now waiting to hear back about the prospects of a possible surgery in Montreal.

“There’s hope; there’s always hope,” Hansen said of what keeps her going. “I don’t believe for one minute there isn’t something that can be done.”

That doesn’t mean this ordeal hasn’t been devastating to Hansen.

She has fought with anxiety, depression and a physical pain often too burdensome.

She notices people who stare, who circle around her to get a closer look.

“You can hear their whispers,” Hansen said through tears. “It’s not nice.”

Hansen considers her anguish an injustice she has been forced to endure by herself.

Never did doctors, who she begged for a solution, suggest the Mayo Clinic, until she happened to overhear a doctor in the background of a phone call.

She is bothered by being unemployed, without steady work because of her condition. She is not receiving disability payments because she once discontinued the benefit in a futile bid to return to work.

She has fought to re-continue disability payments since then, but her appeals have been denied.

And then there’s the physical agony, which only gets worse as Hansen’s risk of infection rises due to medication weakening her immune system.

“It hurts to the point you don’t even want to tolerate the pain anymore, so you just try to get your mind off it. You do something, you take a pill, you talk about it with somebody, you cry,” an emotional Hansen explained.

“Sometimes you rant and rave and you don’t understand what’s going on.”

But galvanized by the support of her husband, three adult children and her friends, she presses forward.

“Every day you have to push through,” she said.

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