Klaudia's Story

On 1st April 2022, my daughter went into a&e in Good Hope Hospital with her father complaining about her left arm which was swollen & hot. She wasn’t able to lift it up and it’s been about 8 weeks since the problem started.

I went with Klaudia previously to a&e but they told her that it was a pulled muscle and she should take painkillers and exercise it.

They decided to do an x-ray to see if the bone was broken, and in fact, it was broken. We were directed to a room where they broke the news to us that it was cancer.

Immediately, she had a CT scan done which showed that it had spread to her lungs. A couple days later, she had an mri done which showed a fairly large tumour on her left humerus and we were directed to Birmingham’s Children Hospital for a biopsy. This was the start of our journey.

After the procedure, Klaudia started showing the typical symptoms of bone cancer particularly the pain at night. She described it as someone stabbing her from the inside and she would often hit herself in the leg to focus the pain somewhere else. She was constantly on paracetamol & ibuprofen which barely did anything.

We tried putting cold creams on, ice and we even bought a mini fan that she could use to relieve the pain. It was heartbreaking to see how much she was struggling so I rang our GP and asked if we could get any stronger painkiller. He had prescribed her morphine and she finally slept through the night easily. The biopsy results came back and Klaudia was diagnosed with metastic high grade osteosarcoma. We met with her oncologist where he explained to us how treatment would look like and she had her port put in.

A week later, we began MAP (doxorubicin, cisplatin, methotrexate) chemotherapy. Often during her breaks, we would come back with a temperature, infections, blood clot. We were practically living in hospital and it was very hard for Klaudia mentally because she was super unhappy.

After 2 cycles, she had scans done and during the 3rd cycle the results came back. Unfortunately, on the CT scan it showed that 2 more growths had appeared in her lungs. She was put on a different chemo (ifosfamide+etoposide) and she had only managed one cycle.

Her kidneys didn’t react well to this as her creatinine was higher than ever before. They were worried that they damaged them so she had a ultrasound, urine sample and gfr blood test. Luckily, nothing was damaged and everything was okay! She didn’t have chemo for about a month however, it was time for scans.

She had an MRI and CT scan done as usual and when the results came back we found out that she had 1 more growth appear in her lungs. This was her biggest one yet and it was scary. We were given a choice if we wanted the last chemo that they can offer us or if we wanted to take part in a clinical trial.

Klaudia chose to try out the last chemo. It was much better for her because she could stay at home and only come in for the infusions. This time, only a CT scan was done and when the results came back we were crying tears from happiness. The biggest growth has shrunk! We continued chemo, and the next scans showed that the growth had disappeared. Since then, the scans have been stable and we are still on the chemotherapy.

We are really looking forward to this much needed break away, thank you BSF