My Designer Cancer

I would say the main reason I started the blog is to raise awareness of this rare cancer in young people. It’s so rare that only 150 are diagnosed in Britain each year!! When I was diagnosed, the Doctor told me he would see a case like this once in 10 years and that most GPs may see this once in their lifetime!

I was diagnosed on 18/11/13 with a type of bone cancer called Osteosarcoma.

Osteosarcoma is a very rare cancer that starts in the bone (normally in the arms, legs or sometimes in the back) and normally isn’t found until it grows outside of the bone, that’s when you get the pain!

My cancer was in my right thigh (femur bone). It has now been removed from my femur, along with a large chunk of bone and 70% of the muscle! It was replaced with a very interesting titanium bone and some how the muscles have managed to grow around it. I can now walk with no support and just a slight limp.

I have a tumour in my lower back (saddle bone), in my ilium (to be quite honest with you I have no idea what or where that is but I’ve been told it’s lower back) and in my lung.

I first started feeling a slight pain in my right thigh in April 2013. I am (well was) heavily involved in netball so after being told it was knots in my muscle by my GP and being referred to physio I accepted that quite easily. I also worked in a commercial kitchen, often being pushed to the limits, especially over the Summer Holidays.

After attending physio religiously for about 4 months and all the pain seemed to be getting worse, I decided to go back to my GP. He referred me for an MRI on my back and an ultrasound on my right hip, femur and knee. Along with being given some pretty strong painkillers!

After being told there were no problems with the MRI I just started to think I was making a fuss over nothing, but then the day of my ultrasound came.

I had the ultrasound at 9.30, telling college I should be in by 11. By 11 I had been sent for an emergency X-ray, I had been told the horrible news and I had cried for about 10 minutes straight. Needless to say, I didn’t go to College that day!

I was referred to Stanmore (The National bone hospital) for a week later, in which they took various scans and I had a biopsy taken from my femur.

Two weeks later I was in UCLH under going my first batch of chemo. It’s all been a bit of a whirl wind, but I wouldn’t want it any other way! I’m ready to take my cancer down and I hope (Genghis as we call him!) (well all of them..) (we really need to think of some other names!) is ready for a fight!

I cannot express how accommodating everyone at UCLH have been, from the nurses, to my social worker from the Charity Clic Sargent. Also the amount of support from Charities I have seen and of course my friends and family is overwhelming!

I don’t think I could be in a better place right now.