“I had been training in the gym since 2019,” said Amy Haigh, from New Zealand. “I was an avid horse rider, and I would spend the weekends walking my dogs or at the beach.”
Following her accident in March 2022, when at the gym, Amy noticed her knee would swell and feel sore.
There was a “dull ache” whenever she tried to exercise and felt “really off”.
Trying to get to the bottom of her leg pain, Amy sought relief from a physiotherapist, chiropractor and osteopath.
None were able to get down to the root cause of her leg pain, so Amy’s personal trainer suggested she should get a medical scan.
An MRI scan revealed in September of that year that she had osteosarcoma, a high-grade bone cancer.
“I was horrified it was cancer,” Amy shared. “But there was also some relief because I had been trying to get to the bottom of this knee pain for so long.”
Once the shock had settled, Amy struggled with her diagnosis, crying in her car, in the bathroom, and on her lunch breaks, every day.
“I knew something was wrong and I was unfortunately proven right,” Amy said.
Osteosarcoma is a type of bone cancer, the NHS clarifies, which leads to pain in the affected bone.
“This pain may initially come and go, and then gradually become more severe and constant, especially at night,” the NHS says. “There may also be swelling around the affected bone.”
By the end of October 2022, Amy began two rounds of chemotherapy, each involving a 35-day cycle, including a two-week hospital stay.
Amy revealed: “I found these stays absolutely awful because I felt so lonely and isolated. My doctors and nurses were absolutely incredible, though.
“After my first round of chemotherapy, I was so sick, they had to lower my dose for the next cycle so I still had some quality of life.”
In January 2023, Amy had an eight-hour operation on her leg to remove the cancerous lesion.
“There was a risk that they would have to do a full knee replacement which would have been devastating… I would have to have surgeries for the rest of my life,” said Amy.
Luckily, Amy’s leg could be held together with one plate and 11 screws. In March, Amy was given the all-clear.