Yorkshire & Lincolnshire

It took just three weeks for consultants to confirm Sally's worst fears.

She was diagnosed as having a cancer called osteo sarcoma.

Sally was told that she'd need nine months of chemotherapy.

Her's was a rare form of cancer - there are only about 100 cases every year in Great Britain.

The good news was that it was treatable.

But the bad news - for a young woman like Sally - was that the treatment would almost certainly affect her fertility. 

Aside from the fertility fears, she worried about her partner Pete.

Sally's cancer was diagnosed just three weeks before they were due to get married.

Was it fair to tie Pete down as his wife-to-be turned into an invalid?

Surprises in store

The cancer was to throw Sally another nasty surprise.

After chemotherapy the doctors found that the tumour in her leg had grown, not shrunk.

During her treatment Sally started to record her feelings, and wrote about it for a BBC website.

Then, after the treatment had finished, something wonderful and unexpected happened - Sally fell pregnant.

For a former cancer patient to become pregnant after such strong chemotherapy is very unusual.

Against all odds, almost two years after being diagnosed with cancer, Sally gave birth to a baby girl.

Sally looks back on her traumatic experience in this exclusive interview with BBC Inside Out.

Coping with cancer

When you found out that you had cancer, was it a 'bolt from the blue'?

It was a huge shock, because at 26 you don't expect to be told you've got cancer.

Cancer is something that you know is common and you think, maybe when I'm older, you know, when I hit my 50s, 60s...

But when you're 26 and you're about to get married, and you've got your wedding booked...

At that stage, I didn't know I was going to lose my leg - and that it was a serious cancer and it would need really serious treatment.

You knew there was something wrong with your knee though, didn't you?

I had just started getting a pain in my right knee... I was very active and I would be out walking all day, and when I got home it would just start to ache.

But I hadn't twisted it or sprained it, so I did think it was a bit weird, especially when it just kept getting worse and worse.

Eventually the knee was swollen and red and hot and I kept going back to my GP over about six months, and I got referred to a physio.

No-one seemed to know what was the matter with it, and I didn't know either - I just knew that there was something wrong, but I never thought of cancer.

What happened to make you realise what it was?

Eventually the physio managed to get me an appointment to have an X-ray at the hospital...

As soon as I had that X-ray, I had it on the Thursday, and on the Friday the hospital doctor rang me at work...

And she said, 'you need to come in this lunchtime and I need to talk to you about your X-ray'.

So that was when it really hit home that something was wrong... I had  this horrible sinking feeling, and knew that something was quite serious.

How did the hospital break the news to you?

At that point there wasn't a diagnosis, there was just something suspicious on the X-rays…

The female doctor showed me how there was a grey area on the bone where the bone had been eaten away…

She said that I would need to be referred straight away to Birmingham to the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital and that I would need a biopsy… an MRI scan and a CT scan - and it would be best if I didn't go back to work until they'd found out what it was.

I knew it was serious… she did mention cancer - but I asked her what other things it could be.

She said it could be a benign tumour or a bone infection or something like that, so that's what I was clinging onto at that time because I didn't want to think about the possibility of cancer.

It was mentioned, so it was there at the back of my mind.

How did the doctors break the news to you?

I went to Birmingham for the biopsy, and when I had the MRI scans down there, they actually said from just looking at the MRI scan that they thought it was a benign tumour.

But then three weeks later we got a call and we were asked to go back down to Birmingham and they wouldn't tell me what it was over the phone…

So we went down to Birmingham, me and Pete, and my mum and my dad, and we were just waiting in one of the rooms and then the doctor came in with the Macmillan nurse…

And he said, 'yes, you've got osteo sarcoma, it's cancer, you're going to need nine months of chemotherapy; you're going to have to have a major operation to replace part of your knee'.

I can't quite remember exactly what happened in that room because I just went into a bit of a daze and just felt really dizzy.

I had to ask Pete and my mum and dad afterwards what he'd said, because it just feel like I was in a tunnel and this was happening to somebody else.

I could see the doctor telling me these things but I didn't, I felt like it was happening to someone else - very strange.

How did you take the news?

I remember driving back to Leeds from Birmingham… I was just sitting there watching the cars go past and just thinking, life would never be the same again.

And it just felt so strange that I was there, sitting in the car, but I'd just been told something and everything was going to change.

I suppose my first thoughts were about having to cancel the wedding, because that was due to take place in a few weeks time.

So Pete was having to ring all our friends and family and tell them the wedding was cancelled…

When you're told you have cancer, you sort of think about your hair falling out, but that didn't really bother me that much.

The thing that I was worried about the most was my fertility, because I knew that the cancer treatment could make it difficult to have children.

I wanted to have fertility treatment but I was told there wasn't time, so that was the hardest thing to deal with right from the start…

We were about to just get married, and we knew that we'd like to have a family, and then being told that it was going to be unlikely and that you couldn't do anything about it was pretty devastating.

How did Pete feel about the prognosis?

Pete is very practical and all the way through has just been very positive about it and said, 'we'll just get through this bit and we'll tackle everything else in its time'.

All the way through he has always kept very positive and supported me - kept me going really.

When you were told that you couldn't have children how did you manage to keep yourself together?

It was very much up and down throughout the treatment.

Some days I would feel that I was fine, that I was just going to take one day at a time and I would cross off, you know, that's another day of treatment gone.

And other days I would just burst into tears, just suddenly - you know, I could be just watching TV and I'd just burst into tears and I'd cry for an hour and just not be able to stop…

Some days you just could cope better than other days, but chemotherapy takes so much out of you that some days you're just so tired and sick and run-down, that I think you can't do anything else but just cry and let it out…

You just feel completely drained of energy and you just don't feel like yourself - you feel like a different person really, you just lose your identity.

Did you ever think 'why me'?

I think at the start you do, but now I think 'why not me?'.

It can happen to anyone and I don't look for a reason why it happened to me.

I just see it as something that unfortunately happened to me and could happen to anyone, and it's just unlucky…

So all you can do really is deal with it and just carry on really.

The prognosis for that kind of cancer isn't great is it? How do you deal with that?

They do tell you the statistics, and I think for this kind of cancer it's 55% of people survive over five years, so it's just over half your odds.

So statistically it's not that great and if you focus on that, then it's very dispiriting.

I tried not to focus on the statistics of it, because everyone is different - you can't predict at the start which half you're going to fall into.

All you can do is take one day at a time, go through your treatment, hope for the best and just try and carry on and hope that you will, that you will survive.

So I don't think it's very helpful to focus on the statistics because they are just that.

Do you feel that you had to be positive?

I wouldn't say that I was positive all the time throughout treatment, because it is so draining - it's difficult to be super-positive every day.

You've got to be realistic about it as well and let yourself feel just the devastation of it.

You can't just breeze through and say, 'I'm going to be fine'.

But I think you know, once you've gone through treatment and you're stopping having these chemicals inside you, then you can become more positive again and just start to enjoy life again.

Were you afraid that you were going to die?

Yes.

Did you prepare yourself for that?

No, I was afraid of dying because that's what cancer means to you when you're first diagnosed.

You do feel so ill throughout treatment but sometimes you feel like you are dying.

But I never prepared for it or thought about it because I knew that I would have had some warning if that was going to happen.

The doctors would have told me if I wasn't responding to treatment or anything like that.

The fear is always there, but there's no point actively thinking about it, because you've just got to focus on your treatment and getting through it.

You had a pretty miserable time while you were having your chemo, didn't you?

Yes. Chemotherapy was more difficult than I'd anticipated really...

I thought, I'll lose my hair, I'll feel a bit tired and a bit sick, but I'll still feel like myself and I'll still be able to get on with things.

I even had work give me a laptop because I thought I'd carry on working from home.

You just feel completely drained of energy, you can sleep all day and still be tired, and my regime was a very intensive regime.

It was nine months and most of that was in hospital and… the  chemotherapy was through a drip and I had a cannular sort of inserted into my chest permanently.

So you kind of felt alienated that you had this permanent chest tube.

I didn't look like myself - my face was all swollen with the steroids.

My face was all bruised and when I looked at myself in the mirror, I didn't see myself and I didn't feel like myself.

So I found it quite difficult to see friends and things like that -I felt quite isolated.

Did you lose your hair?

Yes, completely. I lost all my hair from about three weeks after the treatment started.

It just starts to gradually come out in clumps, so I'd just be brushing my hair and there would be big clumps on the hairbrush.

And then when you wake up there's loads on the pillow so eventually I just got my mum to cut it all really short so it wasn't as noticeable when it was coming out…

After about four-five weeks, I was just completely bald.

It's hard to look in the mirror and not recognise yourself - I just wore headscarves and I had a couple of wigs that I would wear.

They were really hot and again, it doesn't feel like your hair, so it was hard.

But then you know your hair is going to come back, so that's not the worst thing about the treatment because you know it's only temporary.

It's more how you feel, I think.

Tell us about the treatment?

I had two months, two cycles of chemotherapy, then I had my operation.

Then I had six more cycles afterwards.

The plan at the start had been to have two cycles of chemotherapy and then have this knee replacement operation.

But when they re-scanned my knee, they found that the tumour had actually got bigger during treatment, instead of smaller.

That was another big shock…

They told me that really my only option was an amputation, so that's what I had to do.

And again I didn't have any time to come to terms with it.

I was told on the Saturday, and then I had, I went down to Birmingham on Tuesday and had the operation on Thursday.

That was a huge thing to prepare for and come to terms with - the fact that I was losing my leg, five days later.

But again, it was just sort of, that's what I had to do to survive, so that's what I did.

And actually it's only after I'd finished treatment that that really sunk in what had happened, because when I was still being treated, I felt so ill…

It was only afterwards when I tried to get back to normal life that I realised how difficult it was, and the changes that I'd have to make.

How did you feel about the amputation?

It was a huge shock and when you think about an amputation, it's mediaeval.

It's not something you think about that you'd ever have to go through, and the thought of it is horrible…

Waking up after an operation and looking down and your leg has gone, it's just horrendous.

And then, thinking about life afterwards and what it's going to be like...

But I just focused on - I'll get a prosthetic leg, I'll be able to walk, I won't be in a wheelchair, and I'll manage, so that's all I focused on really.

How did your family take the news?

My family have always put on a brave face in front of me.

My mum was in hospital with me every day and she always came in smiling and with a cup of tea and flowers - and just always boosted me.

But I know that when she went home, she was very upset, because no-one wants to see their daughter go through that.

But my family have been amazing really - just keeping me going and keeping me up-beat.

And that's what you need really when you're going through treatment - you don't want to see your mum crying, or your fiancé crying because that would just make you worse.

Obviously it's been really difficult for them, but they've always kept me strong really.

What was it like after the operation?

It was awful, because I knew when I woke up that's what I was going to see.

I was just going to see this flat sheet where my leg was and that is obviously what I saw, and I mean the leg was obviously heavily bandaged.

I didn't look at it for a good week, even though they were obviously changing the dressings every day.

But I was like out of bed a day later and I was walking up and down on crutches, and it kind of wasn't as bad straight afterwards as I'd thought.

I was desperate to get home and to leave hospital and they wouldn't let me leave until I'd shown that I could go on the crutches, I could go up and down stairs and I could get myself from the floor onto a chair.

So I just focused on all that physio stuff and made myself do that, because I wanted to get home so desperately, so it was just, just coping with that really, rather than thinking about how I looked and what I'd lost.

Was it a relief as well that the source of all this was gone and that you could start again?

Yes, it was. The surgeon came and saw me after the operation and he said, 'as far as we know you're now cancer-free'.

I did start to feel better because I was having a break from chemotherapy, and the day after the operation, a couple of days after the colour came back to my face and I did just start to look and feel a bit better.

Maybe it's psychological, but the fact that the tumour wasn't there, was a huge milestone, and it was something positive to think about.

Even though my leg wasn't there, the tumour wasn't there either, that was something positive.

How did you find coping with a prosthetic limb?

I got fitted with a leg about a month after the operation, but because I was so tired and ill, I didn't wear it much at all - I just was going round on my crutches.

It wasn't until I'd finished treatment, and I started to feel a bit stronger that I would probably wear it and practise walking.

Get one leg and you learn to do a few steps with sticks or crutches and then gradually you get better and you get different legs, more advanced legs as you go on that can do more things,

But it is an on-going process…  everyday I'm just learning to walk a bit further and it's a lifelong process as well because you're always going to have new legs fitted as your body shape changes and as you get older,.

So it's not a case of just being fitted with a leg and that's it.

Did you find that you needed a sense of humour sometimes?

Your prosthetic leg is never going to do what your real leg can do but it will do some things quite well that your real one wouldn't-  like slipping forward into the slips when you're not wanting it to, or collapsing…

You've just got to learn that you will fall over, people will laugh at you and think that you're drunk and you just have to get used to that and pick yourself up.

Sometimes it does feel like it has a life of its own and it will sort of ping up.

You've got to have a sense of humour about it really…

Were you confident that your relationship would stand all this?

We got together when we were 19, at university and up till my diagnosis, our life had been fun - we'd gone on holidays together, moved in together, bought our first house…

And then to have this major kind of crisis at 26, it was a huge, huge thing.

I am always going to need a bit more help and a bit more support from time to time - and, of course, there's always a fear of the cancer coming back and me getting ill again.

So there were times during treatment when I would try and push him away almost to give him a chance, so if he wanted to reconsider then, he could do that..

But in the end it's made our relationship even stronger, I think.

The wedding day was like cleansing everything that had gone before…

It was only five months after I'd finished treatment that we got married, and I was quite worried about something going wrong before the wedding, because I felt like I was jinxed.

Did you feel that your blog might help other people?

Yes. When I was diagnosed, I couldn't find another young woman in the same position with the same kind of cancer, that had the same kind of concerns as me…

There were services for teenagers and children, and there were services for older people but there was nothing for 20, 30, 40 something's.

That's why I started writing really…

What was it like to find out you were pregnant?

It was only like three months' later… I was getting sort of like cramps, like stomach cramps and just feeling very tired and sick and just not feeling myself.

My first thought was, it's the cancer coming back, and the second thought was, it's early menopause…

Then for some reason I just decided to do a pregnancy test… so I just literally, just went into the bathroom and then the blue cross appeared.

So I went to the GP and had a test there and that was positive, and I went to the hospital and had a test there and that was positive, so I had about seven tests in the end.

But still we didn't really believe it till we went and had a scan and saw the little blob.

That was amazing really, because it was moving around and kicking.

It was really emotional - I just cried when I just saw it…

It just feels like a little miracle really after everything, and we just feel very lucky…

I think it's kind of about time that something went right for us and this feels like, if it all goes well, it's been worth getting to this point.

I mean it's an amazing thing that's happened to us and I hope that it will kind of take away some of the pain of what's happened before.

It's a fresh start for us and just an amazing opportunity… I think I'm happier right now than I've been for a long time.

It's a complete turn-around of events really from just two years ago.

I get quite amazed when I think about it that this time two years ago, I was in hospital, with no hair, undergoing treatment…