“Life before cancer was busy. I'm an owner operator of three businesses and I absolutely love my job.

If we weren't at work, we were travelling and really, we never expected something like breast cancer to turn up” says Rachel Krieg.

For Rachel, Kate, Sandra and Jessica, a breast cancer diagnosis had a huge impact on many aspects of day to day life: careers, motherhood, relationships and exercise.

As part of their overall cancer treatment, they each incorporated specialised exercise medicine to manage physical and psychological effects.

Rachel explains, “I discovered Lift through the great advice of my GP, my surgeon, and also the breast care nurse at St. Andrews.  I get quite emotional when I think about it because your friends and your family can give you lots of support, but I think having to go here, the front of house staff and the physios, they go through this with people day in and day out.  They're specialists.  There are so many benefits coming to Lift.  I think the major one for me would have been overcoming fatigue.”

Lift Cancer Care Services is a clinic based in Adelaide, providing evidence-based wellness improvement programs, helping patients to complete their cancer treatment and to improve their quality of life.

Lift services includes physiotherapy, clinical psychology, dietetics, speech therapy and exercise medicine.

Recognizing that Kate is an active person, her friend recommended that she use Lift’s exercise resources, “She knew straight away that if I didn't do that, that would be quite catastrophic to my mental health and my sense of routine.  You leave here, you feel really happy that you've come.”

For Jessica, the benefits stretched further than she had anticipated, “I found the physical benefits pretty obvious.  But the mental health benefits were great.  Just meeting people that you would never normally associate with, different age groups and different stories, but they're all going through a similar process.”

Exercise medicine is proven to play a vital role in managing the physical and mental effects of cancer and cancer treatment.  It also reduces the risk of cancer recurrence by up to 35%.  Lauren Whiting, Co-founder and CEO of Lift, explains, “There is now irrefutable evidence from extensive prospective studies that regular exercise post-diagnosis will increase survivorship by 50 to 60%”

Sandra is feeling hopeful, “For me, the future looks like spending time with my kids, travelling and just getting back to enjoying life.”