Should I play tennis? “Yes, just don’t play Federer.”

As soon as I’ve recovered from my radiotherapy treatment and assuming I’ve regained sufficient mobility and strength in my right arm and shoulder, I plan to get back on the tennis courts. I was concerned that the movements involved in playing might increase my risk of developing lymphoedema but the consultant oncologist in charge of my radiotherapy reckons otherwise.

I’ve made no secret of my fear of developing this condition (Fear of lymphoedema) in my operated arm and I hadn’t been able to find a clear answer on whether tennis would increase the risk of getting it or not. I came across a biography of the consultant online and read that she played tennis so I asked her at our first meeting last week (Post-op progress report No 3: one month on and things are going well) whether, if she’d had the same surgery as me, she’d go back to playing.

The consultant’s answer? A definite yes, with a caveat, though: “Just don’t play Federer.” I wasn’t planning to, so I guess that’s fine. She reckoned the different kinds of movements you make with your arm and shoulder playing tennis don’t constitute the vigorous, repeated arm and shoulder activities that women at risk of lymphoedema are advised to avoid. This consultant says I have a 10-15% risk of developing lymphoedema; I’d been told before it was around 25%, so that was good to hear too.

The plan is for me to have radiotherapy every day excluding weekends* for much of February, starting on the 4th and finishing on the 25th. It should take me a while to recover from that and more in general from the overall battering my body’s taken over the past six months or so. And I guess this hardening of the lymph vessels, or “cording” (A busy week with welcome news – “no further surgery necessary”), in my right armpit and more recently also down my right arm will need to be resolved. Once that’s done, though, I should be able to start hitting tennis balls again. I’ll have to build things up slowly and take it easy at least to start with. I’ll still worry about lymphoedema, but with that encouragement from the oncologist perhaps not quite so much.

*Radiation affects the healthy tissue in the area being treated and the two-day pause in treatment each week is it allow your body to repair this damage.