I lost my leg to cancer - now I've learnt to walk again

At the start of December 2018, I began to get pain just below my knee and I didn’t know what was causing it. I was also getting sensations in my foot, and it was painful to touch.

My dad decided it didn’t sound like a normal injury, but we had to wait until 2^nd January to get a doctor’s appointment. The doctor sent me to the local hospital for an X-ray just in case.

My dad left his phone in his pocket following the appointment. We watched a film and when he looked at it again, he’d had so many missed calls and messages from different hospitals asking him to ring them. They sent us to the fracture clinic, and they asked if it was OK if the nurse specialist came in. She sat us down and said that they thought I had bone cancer. A biopsy confirmed that I had osteosarcoma. I was 13.

I didn’t want to tell people at school until I got my head around it. I was on crutches and they bullied me a lot. Some girls said I was faking it to get the attention of the boys, and some boys would take my crutches and hide them.

I started chemotherapy at my local hospital two weeks after my diagnosis. I had my second dose of chemotherapy at Birmingham Children’s Hospital. It was a more intensive dose and I had acute liver failure. I started to turn yellow, and I began to lose my eyesight for short periods of time. I can’t remember much from around that time as I was so poorly.

I had a 20cm tumour going from the middle of my shinbone to the top of my knee. The consultant told me that they could save the leg or amputate it, but that amputation was the safest option. As soon as I got into the car with my dad, I said that I wanted the amputation. It turned out that they wouldn’t have been able to save my leg anyway as the operation was too risky, so I am glad that I had come to terms with that decision on my own.

I had my amputation in May 2019. It was difficult to get around without my leg, but I always found ways to do it. I managed to get up and down the stairs at home on crutches or on my bum.

I had people stare at me and point. One boy asked if a shark had bitten my leg off, but I said it had fallen off because I didn’t eat my vegetables.

I have officially been in remission since May 2020. I always think “I should have died in 2019 but I got given another chance”. This made me have a much more positive outlook on life. I have been given this opportunity and I need to make the most of it.

I was told that I could get my prosthetic leg during treatment, but they advised against it. Having chemo already takes a lot of energy from you and a prosthetic requires 70 percent more energy to walk on than a leg, so I wouldn’t have had the energy for both.

There were quite a few steps before I could get the prosthetic. After my amputation I met with the physio as if anything went near the wound I would jump. They worked with me to make the area less sensitive with my dad’s help. I had a pressure sock to reduce the swelling and then we had to work on my dad touching the scar. To start with it was very sensitive and then we built up to the point where he was able to do it every day and then a few times a day. 

I was fitted for my prosthetic in November 2020, I took it home in December 2020 and I was walking unaided in January 2021. By June that year I was able to work as a waitress where I was walking around a lot and balancing things. I can’t walk long distances though. Even though I’m not on treatment anymore, my energy levels are similar to when I was on treatment. People sometimes expect you to be back to normal but it’s not always the case. 

The leg I have is a C-Leg 4 which is quite advanced. This one has a cycling mode so I can go on the exercise bike at the gym. It also has Bluetooth, and it remembers how I walk, so if I walk slightly differently it beeps. This makes sure that I don’t do damage to my hips or to my other leg by putting too much strain on it.

They used to provide them for free on the NHS up until you were 16, but they don’t anymore. I think this is really unfair as you are still a child and you have learnt to walk and are encouraged to run about, but cancer and an amputation can strip you of that. 

I am also being measured for a running blade. On the NHS I can get a blade for free until I am 18, so my physio is making sure I get one as they know how much it will mean to me to get back to running. They have to make sure that you can walk well on the prosthetic before getting a blade and the physio is confident that I can do it. I used to run every day, so I am looking forward to being able to run again.