'I got a call from doctors at 7am asking if there was cancer in my family'
A 23-year-old woman needed half her hip removed after the pain she had initially blamed on walking was diagnosed as a rare cancer. Megan Skalska first noticed a problem in October last year. The pain was bone deep and bad enough to wake her in the night.
When she developed a lump she went straight to hospital where she had an x-ray and was sent home in the early hours of the morning. At 7am, the hospital called. 'The first question they asked me was: 'Do you have any cancer in the family?'' Megan says. 'That's when I knew that something wasn't right, especially because they got back to me so quickly. I had my MRI, my CT scan, another X-ray, loads of blood tests, and originally they said it was a benign tumour, which put my mind at ease.
'But then I found out that they suspected it had a malignant transformation.'
Megan, from Sittingbourne in Kent, went for a consultation at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in Stanmore. She was told that doctors suspected the tumour was cancerous, but that they wouldn't know until they'd conducted a biopsy.
'By that point, everything felt surreal,' she says. 'It was unexplainable; I thought everything was against me. The doctor prepared me for the worst, but my doctor was really positive, which helped.'
Megan then faced an anxious wait for surgery. Experts made a custom tool to remove the tumour - but by the time the operation took place, the mass had grown so much that it couldn't be used. The surgery on January 28 was long and complicated, but it was a success.
'At first, I was supposed to have a small operation, which would have only had a four-week-long recovery,' she says. 'But on the day of my operation, I found out that they just kind of went in and removed everything as they probably suspected the cancer was already there. The tumour was just growing so quickly at that point'.
Being in hospital was harder than Megan thought it would be. She woke from the anaesthetic full of tubes and her recovery was exhausting and long. 'I thought I'd be in the hospital for three days max, but I ended up being in hospital for three weeks, and I had an epidural in my back for the first week, so I couldn't feel anything from the waist down and couldn't even move my toe, which was pretty scary,' she says.
'Even just sitting up in bed was really difficult. Luckily my mum Jo was by my side constantly, which really helped. And the nurses were super supportive in getting me everything I needed.'
On Valentine's Day Megan was finally told she had stage 1 chondrosarcoma, a rare type of bone cancer. Initially she felt numb. 'I thought that my mental health would really suffer throughout the cancer diagnosis,' she says. 'But oddly, I think the survivor mode just kicked in, and I persevered. I just thought there's no point in me asking 'why has this happened to me?
'I had to keep positive because being sad wasn't going to change anything. So I just kind of stayed strong for it all. I used to be a lot more emotional before my diagnosis, and I'd cry over nothing. But I think it made me realise that my worries previously weren't real worries at all.
'I stayed strong for me, my family, and my friends. It could have been a lot worse. I was also really worried about amputation. I googled chondrosarcoma and just saw lots of girls having their legs amputated. That was really scary and I was having panic attacks. It's frightening to think about losing part of your body.'
Megan was able to go home three days after receiving the diagnosis without needing any further treatment. Despite having to learn to walk again, eager to move on from the traumatic illness and in desperate need of distraction, she started a new marketing job one week after surgery.
'Going through this has totally given me a new perspective on life,' she says. 'I worry less about the small things. I now realise I didn't really have any problems until I had a health problems. It was really scary looking at survival rates and the percentage chances of the cancer coming back.'
Megan has been told that there is a 30% chance that the cancer will reoccur, so she is focussing on the fact that there is a 70% chance of her being well - and on enjoying life. As soon as she was pronounced fit to fly, she took her crutches and went to Barcelona and Morocco and had amazing holidays.
Megan is very grateful that she went to A&E when she did and wants to encourage others to see the doctor when they suspect something is wrong. 'There's no point waiting – if I had waited, I could have lost my leg or even my life.' she says. 'If your body doesn't feel right, get it checked.
'It's just so important not to let doctors and your GP turn you away because you're young, because when something's not right, it's not right. You never think it's going to happen to you, but just because you're young, that doesn't mean you're immune.
'I am worried about it coming back. But I'm just super grateful to even have that fear. Because so many cancer patients don't have the positive outcome that I had. I'm still in physio and I have a huge scar on my hip, but I've just kind of accepted that. It's nothing to be embarrassed about and I was happy to wear my bikini in Barcelona and not give it another thought.
'It shows me who I am, what I've been through, and how strong I am. I'm still here, and that's something to appreciate. I appreciate everything these days.'
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