PANAMA CITY — It was all about details when surgeon Lea Blackwell set out to design a post-operative bra that would be more comfortable for her breast cancer patients.
“Having to look at their breasts after surgery can be very upsetting for some patients,” Blackwell said. “But having this dressing on can be a comfort.”
Blackwell, originally from Panama City and a member of Bay High School’s class of 1992, felt a nudge to improve the bras patients are sent home in when she learned the worst part of recovering from breast surgery is often the discomfort from conventional post-surgical compression bras.
“Management of the drain bulb is an issue,” Blackwell said.
After breast surgery, some patients must wear a Jackson Pratt drain to alleviate swelling for a couple of weeks following the procedure. Patients leave the hospital with rubber tubing that has fluid collection bulbs at the end dangling from the surgical site.
Surgical drains are easy to snag and often are managed by safety pinning them to an article of clothing. Blackwell had patients coming to follow-up appointments with drains in their pants pockets and other risky locations. She felt the fundamental problem could be solved by factoring drain storage into a better bra design.
“I just think the current one is poorly designed,” she said.
Blackwell said the bras that surgeons issue now often have scratchy Velcro closures, seams where the nipples and incision sites are, and no way to carry the post-surgical drains.
The closures on Blackwell’s bra design are easier to use than current models, which typically have zippers, eye hooks and Velcro that present a challenge for sore patients and arthritic hands.
“I started to think of what would be the easiest thing to take on and off,” she said.
Blackwell was inspired by the fasteners found on life preservers and nursing bras.
Another improvement with Blackwell’s design is how high up the bra rests under the patient’s arm. Current bra models sometimes rest on top of the incision where the patient had lymph nodes in the breast area removed.
“I also put a vent on the back because I have them wear it for about two weeks,” she said.
Since January this year, Blackwell estimates that she’s put her recently patented bra exclusively on about 250 patients.
She employs a seamstress to make her bras, which cost about $30 to $40 each to produce, to keep up with the six or seven bras a week Blackwell gives away.
Blackwell said the number one complaint patients report when they get a call from a nurse following the surgery is how miserable the post-operative bras are.
To date, she hasn’t heard many poor reviews of the bra she puts on patients she cares for at Associates in General and Vascular Surgery, a surgical group based in the Fort Myers area.
“Most of the patients have been very happy about it,” Blackwell said. “Some of them had the other bra before and they tell me there’s a significant difference.”
Blackwell is working on getting a sample made that she hopes will interest a bra manufacturer.
Now that she’s been through the arduous process once, Blackwell hopes an apron she designed to hold surgical drains also will be approved for a patent.
For now, Blackwell is happy sending her patients home in a comfortable, more functional post-operative bra that comes in cheery colors.
“I think it’s very uplifting when you’re going through something stressful,” she said.