Finding Courage in Difficulty

Livestrong
Livestrong Voices
Published in
3 min readMay 22, 2018

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I would like to share my life-changing story with you.

I am a 25 year old woman living in the Bay Area, CA with my fiancé Jose. Aside from the high cost of living in the San Francisco Bay Area and some ongoing pain in my left leg for the past five years or so, life has been really great for us. We love to travel and explore California, we both work in the Hospitality industry, and we have been anxiously awaiting our upcoming wedding date: August 25, 2018.

My life changed suddenly in January 2018 when I went into the doctor’s office for a head injury. My doctor happened to also examine my “problem leg” and took an X-Ray. When the X-Ray came back, we knew something was wrong ­­– right away he said it looked like bone cancer. I had my first biopsy surgery in January 2018 which confirmed that I had cancer, osteosarcoma bone cancer to be exact. Words cannot describe the fear I had for my life.

My big surgery was scheduled for February 13, 2018. The doctor performed a full knee replacement and a partial leg replacement to remove the huge tumor growing in my leg. He cut out 8 inches of bone to be exact. Post-surgery recovery was terrible, painful, and included several days in the hospital. Upon being discharged, hopes were high that my leg would heal with physical therapy, and that I could learn to walk and bend my leg again. Unfortunately, this was not the case as my leg began to retain fluid. I was admitted into the ER and had to get an emergency surgery to clean out the inside of my leg in order to prevent infection. This was just one of the many rough setbacks to come as the new sutures in my leg started bleeding. Back to the ER I went for another emergency surgery, fully reopening and cutting deeply into my leg to replace parts of the bionic knee and leg. It was basically redoing my first surgery again. After six days of recovering in the hospital, I was also diagnosed with a staph infection deep within my leg. I would require a PICC IV permanently inserted in my arm that provides antibiotics 3 times a day to fight the infection.

Being fully wheelchair-bound for two months has changed my entire perspective on what it is like to be a disabled person. Simple tasks I could once do, like using the restroom, are now extremely difficult and discouraging. When my fiancé takes me out in public I feel like people are staring at and judging me, almost as if with pity or they feel like I should not be out. This entire process has not been easy — going from being “normal” to disabled at such a young age.

I’ve taken a five month, maybe more, leave of absence from my job, and our wedding date has been moved back to August 2019. Medical bills are piling up, rent is expensive, and my entire family is located in Colorado so I have been going through this process alone with only my fiancé to help. Through the depression of not being able to walk down the aisle this August (literally), I have found the courage to realize how lucky I am to have my fiancé and to be here today.

Being handicapped has changed my perspective on life, love, and how our society functions.

Callie, osteosarcoma survivor

If you or someone you know needs support at any stage during their cancer journey, connect with LIVESTRONG at www.livestrong.org/we-can-help

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