I was diagnosed with cancer in 2016 when I was in year 5 at school. I was 10.
My ankle had been hurting for weeks and it started waking me at night. When we saw the doctor she ran her hand up my leg and I flinched. Thankfully she decided to do an x-ray from my ankle to my knee as the tumour ended up being nowhere near my ankle and was closer to my knee in my tibia.
Being diagnosed with cancer at 10 is very scary. I had never heard of Osteosarcoma before but I knew what cancer was as my Pa had passed away from it when I was younger.
After my biopsy it turned out the cancer had spread to my lungs. So before I started treatment I had a surgery on my left lung to remove the lung nodule.
The pain after that surgery was so bad. I couldn’t move without it hurting. And it hurt to talk. I stopped talking for about a week. Mum and Dad were really worried. But it just hurt too much and I was still so scared so I just decided it was easier not to talk.
I then started 10 months of chemotherapy that made me really sick. About halfway through the chemo treatment I had the surgery on my leg. This was a big surgery and was done in Sydney so I was away from most of my family and friends for close to a month.
After the surgery I was put in a full leg cast. I ended up being in a moon boot for almost 2 years as one of the screws failed so I needed another surgery 6 months after my first. It was almost 12 months before I could bare weight.
I wanted to get involved with Sleapys Foundation as I wanted to be able to give back for the support that my family and I received. I am so happy to be here and I really want to try and help kids that go through this experience. Whilst my treatment was hard I am so grateful for the amazing people I met along the way including Charlii, Robynn and Peter and to be able to work with the Sleapys Foundation charity.
