INDIANAPOLIS — Inside University Hospital in Indianapolis, Janai Mitchell hits the weights as she works through her physical therapy. Mitchell has been coming in regularly for months, working to keep up her strength and balance, even as she battles breast cancer.
She was diagnosed just before her 27th birthday, news that came as a shock.
"It was very surprising, but I knew my family history," Mitchell said. "It did skip some generations with my mom and her sisters, but I knew the chance I did have it because of my grandma and great-grandma. But you never expect it to happen to you."
But soon after that diagnosis, Mitchell's doctors made physical therapy and exercise a part of her cancer treatment, along with chemotherapy and surgery. She said it's helped her navigate this tough road.
"I'm surprisingly doing good. You know, when you first find out, it's sad and you just want to cry all the time but once the process started I was like, 'OK, I got this,'" Mitchell said.
Her oncologist, Dr. Tarah Ballinger, said she's long been recommending physical therapy for her breast cancer patients. Now, IU Health's Simon Cancer Center has created a physical therapy program for all cancer patients, recommending they get up and moving to help bolster their treatment and energy.
"So we know that physical fitness and physical function are super important during cancer treatment, not just for breast cancer patients but for all cancer patients. There's a lot of evidence that more physical function and better physical fitness can reduce getting cancer in the first place, can help patients do better during their treatment and can even improve the response to treatment and prevent disease recurrences," Ballinger said.
Ballinger said physical therapy and exercise is proven to help improve a patient's response to chemotherapy and give patients control back over their health that cancer often strips away.
"We've found that the earlier we can integrate physical therapy and exercise into a patient's care, the better they're going to do. So what've been trying to do with patients like Janai is get them into physical therapy services from the time of diagnosis to try and prevent any problems, rather than waiting for the problems to occur," Ballinger said.
"I think it's been a missing piece when it comes the continuum of care for oncology patients," said Dr. Bryce Showers, a physical therapist at IU Health University Hospital.
Showers works with cancer patients like Mitchell who are going through physical therapy. He said utilizing this kind of movement through treatment can help patients reduce the risk of joint pain, neuropathy and weakness and it helps patients in feeling stronger.
"But explaining that the fatigue that they feel from treatment can help be reduced by performing exercise. They might feel exercise tired, which is far less intense than the fatigue they'd get from their treatment," Showers said.
"The physical therapy is helping take my mind off of things because I know I have to do something to help my body recover," Mitchell said.
Now, with just a few chemotherapy treatments left to go, Mitchell said she's taking this breast cancer journey one day at a time.
"You know, some days are worse than others," she said. "And being an athlete, I have that motivation where like if I don't get up, I'm going to lose it. So I think getting that motivation to just get up and do something, whether it's walking or lifting or just some type of stretching, you can feel the effect it has in the long run."
Pushing herself during both her workouts and her treatments, she's getting herself closer toward that goal of feeling good and, finally, being cancer-free.
"It's a journey," Mitchell said.
And we have an update on that journey.
We learned Oct. 7 that Michell marked her final infusion at IU Health's Simon Cancer Center.
Ringing the bell at the end of her treatments and wiping away tears of joy, Mitchell proudly waved a sign that read, "I did it!