The pain came and went, and each time it flared up my mum took me to the GP, from which we were always pushed away with the reassurance it was just growing pains. It took 4 months and countless appointments for one GP to push me through to get an x-ray, hence the importance now being placed on knowing the signs of bone cancer to shorten diagnosis time. This x-ray was on my knee, where I had explained the pain to be centered. The tumor was actually in my femur, but luckily the knee x-ray caught the edge of the mysterious glowing lump, which then meant I had to have an MRI scan on my whole leg to see where the tumor was/how big it was. This was all whilst being reassured it was fluid on the knee. So after the MRI scans came back and there was indeed a large glowing mass of cells, I was booked in for a biopsy.
The biopsy was at 9.00 AM on the 21st April 2005. The day my life changed forever. I was told I had cancer. My first reaction was "Am I going to die?", which my mother denied and told me I'd be ok, even though no one really knew.
The weeks that followed were simply awful. My life had changed from sitting in a classroom at primary school, learning how to spell and what triangles were, to being injected and scanned and taking every mediation under the sun. What was so structured and certain became chaos and it terrified me. I started chemotherapy very soon after diagnosis as the tumor was quite an advanced size of 7cm, due to the difficulty of diagnosing bone cancer. I had a bout of the strongest form of chemotherapy every three weeks until September, when the tumor had shrunk enough for it to be removed through a knee replacement. I then has a weaker type of chemotherapy every 3 weeks until February 2006, to make sure no cancer cells were left and able to form another tumor. I had a full round of scans after this, which showed another mysterious smudge. This however, wasn't actually anything (my mother blamed the toggles on my cardigan) but did set back my all-clear date to May 4th.
And that was the end of that hugely important segment of my life. I had 3 monthly check ups, then 6 monthly, and now yearly.
I think what makes bone cancer so cruel is that the actual cancer is not the only problem, because it affects the area so severely. As aforementioned, my tumor was in my right femur, causing me to need a knee replacement. This affected me in a more long-term way, due to the fact that whilst bone grows, metal does not, meaning that one leg continued to lengthen whilst my little leg better grew only into the name little leg. At first, this wasn't too much of an issue because the actual knee replacement could be lengthened by a simple procedure once the difference started to affect my walking. However, once this reached it's maximum and my teenage body kept growing, it became more of an issue. To combat this, I had the growth plate in my left leg removed to stop it growing. Problem solved, right? Ah, sadly nothing seems to be that simple. My legs somehow continued to drift further apart length-wise, which led to the worst leg-related procedure of my life. I had an illazrov frame fitted. Google at your peril. But after this, I was fixed. I'm ok now. I've survived, and I feel so privileged to have survived when so many have been lost to the awful disease, especially Ewing's Sarcoma. And for that I will be forever thankful.
Thanks for listening,
The biopsy was at 9.00 AM on the 21st April 2005. The day my life changed forever. I was told I had cancer. My first reaction was "Am I going to die?", which my mother denied and told me I'd be ok, even though no one really knew.
The weeks that followed were simply awful. My life had changed from sitting in a classroom at primary school, learning how to spell and what triangles were, to being injected and scanned and taking every mediation under the sun. What was so structured and certain became chaos and it terrified me. I started chemotherapy very soon after diagnosis as the tumor was quite an advanced size of 7cm, due to the difficulty of diagnosing bone cancer. I had a bout of the strongest form of chemotherapy every three weeks until September, when the tumor had shrunk enough for it to be removed through a knee replacement. I then has a weaker type of chemotherapy every 3 weeks until February 2006, to make sure no cancer cells were left and able to form another tumor. I had a full round of scans after this, which showed another mysterious smudge. This however, wasn't actually anything (my mother blamed the toggles on my cardigan) but did set back my all-clear date to May 4th.
And that was the end of that hugely important segment of my life. I had 3 monthly check ups, then 6 monthly, and now yearly.
I think what makes bone cancer so cruel is that the actual cancer is not the only problem, because it affects the area so severely. As aforementioned, my tumor was in my right femur, causing me to need a knee replacement. This affected me in a more long-term way, due to the fact that whilst bone grows, metal does not, meaning that one leg continued to lengthen whilst my little leg better grew only into the name little leg. At first, this wasn't too much of an issue because the actual knee replacement could be lengthened by a simple procedure once the difference started to affect my walking. However, once this reached it's maximum and my teenage body kept growing, it became more of an issue. To combat this, I had the growth plate in my left leg removed to stop it growing. Problem solved, right? Ah, sadly nothing seems to be that simple. My legs somehow continued to drift further apart length-wise, which led to the worst leg-related procedure of my life. I had an illazrov frame fitted. Google at your peril. But after this, I was fixed. I'm ok now. I've survived, and I feel so privileged to have survived when so many have been lost to the awful disease, especially Ewing's Sarcoma. And for that I will be forever thankful.
Thanks for listening,
Sophie xo
Sophie,
ReplyDeleteI was diagnosed with bone cancer (chondrosarcoma) at 20. I also had a tumour in my femur and have had a hip replacement, they put a titanium prosthesis in me.
You are not alone :)
I wrote a blog... though it isn't updated anywhere nearly as often as yours, sadly.
Here's mine: http://theroadtorepair.blogspot.co.uk/
Keep writing and keep smiling!
Liam
Hello
ReplyDeleteI was diagnosed with osteosarcoma in my cheekbone last year 2014, the bone was removed but the tumour still remains.
I try to update my blog every day: http://spekkio.blogspot.se/