Wednesday Warrior – Nina

I’m 31 years old and three weeks ago beat cancer for the second time.

I was originally diagnosed with Osteosarcoma on April 2, 2002, at the age of 17. I was just finishing high school and noticed one knee was larger than the other. The tumor was the size of an orange and on my right femur right next to my knee. It took nine months of chemo and a limb salvage surgery (replacing my knee joint and most of my femur with metal), and then I was back to a mostly regular life.

This year, on January 29, 2015 (13 years later), I got a chest x-ray because of a persistent cough and they found another large (9cm) Osteosarcoma tumor in my left lung. It was too close to my heart and other important blood vessels to be able to surgically remove right away so I did six months and all six rounds of chemo first. I just had the surgery recently to remove the tumor as well as one of the lobes from my left lung, and am recovering really really well.

This second time through cancer was a lot more difficult emotionally since the tumor was in a much more dangerous and life-threatening location. But with incredible technology and super well-trained doctors, and lots of support from family and friends, the doctors were able to remove the whole tumor and here I am on the other side of cancer one more time.

Having learned a few things from the first time with cancer, I decided to keep a blog about my experience this time so my friends and family, and someone going through a similar diagnosis could see how I was doing over the months. My blog is at: www.welovenina.com. Feel free to comment on the blog if you have more questions or need some encouragement. I hope it brings hope to those of you going through cancer a second time. Cancer is beatable!

If you or a loved one has been impacted by sarcoma cancer, we encourage you to share your story. Sharing your story can be such an inspiration to others who are dealing with sarcoma in their own life and remind us all of the urgency to find better treatments in order to make an impact on the devastation that sarcoma cancer brings. Let your experiences help others become involved with raising awareness!