Garret’s Story

Osteosarcoma at the pelvis
Age at Diagnosis: 14
Date of Diagnosis: 1991
Location: Dublin, Ireland

Diagnosis: My initial diagnosis was on foot of some dull pain that I experienced on the left side of my pelvis/hip in February of 1991. At first my doctor said that it was probably just a sports related muscle tear but after the pain had lasted for around a month; I was sent for some x-rays. The x-rays seemed to show that the problem was more serious than this and I was then sent for a bone scan. Although the doctor who supervised the bone scan suspected that I may have had some sort of growth, he referred me to the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto for more extensive tests which included a CT scan. Being only 14 at the time, my recollection of the whole thing is that everything seemed to move so fast; from the initial pain in my hip to eventually being admitted to hospital for tests. After the CT scan, I was admitted to the hospital. In March of 1991, I underwent a biopsy. In April, I was formally diagnosed with osteogenic sarcoma in my left pelvis. Read more

Cathy’s Story

Osteosarcoma at the Pelvis
Age at Diagnosis: 48
Year of Diagnosis: 2003
Location: Alabama
Surgeon: Dr. Herbert Schwartz, Vanderbilt

Diagnosis: When I was 38, I had a CT scan for a kidney related problem. On this scan, they found a golf ball sized “lesion” on the left posterior pelvis. The urologist brought this to the attention of my orthopedic surgeon and for the next 10 years, every six months, I had a cat scan to “follow” this “lesion”. They compared the scans and it never changed. The whole time this was going on the golf ball was always only referred to as the “lesion” so I, as an RN even, never felt any concern that I needed to do anything more and just went along with it. I was told later this was the “standard of care,” that after 10 years a doctor stops following a particular thing if it is not causing problems. Read more

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