'If it's not healing, get a second opinion' - Woman's warning after knee pain turns out to be cancer
A woman has been left shocked after finding out her misdiagnosed knee pain is a rare form of cancer.
The 27-year-old from Longshoot in Hinckley, first suffered the pain more than a year ago after she began struggling to kneel and bend.
Sarah-Jayne Wilson had initially been told over the phone that the agony was tendonitis, but the pain continued to worsen.
She said: “I have been having knee pain and you know you just brush something off and don't think about it.
"Well, it got to the point where I couldn't walk properly or kneel, so the first time I ever rang the doctors, they diagnosed me over the phone.
"They diagnosed me with tendonitis. They told me not to kneel on it, and go swimming.”
She then reached out to Grange Medical Centre in Nuneaton and George Eliot Hospital - and was diagnosed with Osgood-Schlatter condition and then shin splints.
The pain continued and it was only when Sarah-Jayne visited a private physiotherapist that concerns grew and they pushed for her to have an MRI scan, which found two tumours; one in her shin bone and one on the side, just under her knee.
She was suffering from Ewing's sarcoma - a rare form of bone cancer.
Sarah is now having her knee replaced and undergoing chemotherapy.
She said: “It is so aggressive, they were worried that it had spread. I had so many scans, and within the space of a month I had two operations because the chemo is going to make me infertile.”
Sarah now has treatment where she sits for five days, six hours at a time, having chemotherapy. She then has a weeks break, before it starts again.
She said: “If it has shrunk enough I have got to have a whole new knee and half of my tibia replaced.
"Then more chemo again to check it has not gone anywhere else, then, after the second round, a foot drop operation because all of my nerves died to my foot. So my foot is completely dead.”
She added: “It is tough, especially when you are there for five days. For the first few days, you feel like 'okay, you've got this' but the third and fourth day, you are just absolutely drained from all of it.”
She is now encouraging other, who don't believe their complaints are being taken serious enough, to push for diagnoses.
Sarah-Jayne said: “You trust doctors, you trust that they are going to look after you but I would say that if it is not healing, or not getting better, to get a second opinion. You never ever know what it could be.”
A George Eliot Hospital spokesperson said: “We are sorry to hear of Ms Wilson’s experience. We are unable to comment on an individual’s care and treatment, but we do invite Ms Wilson to get in contact with us so we can investigate her concerns further.”
ITV News Central has approached The Grange Medical Centre for a comment.