More than a Bump - Alice's Sarcoma Story

Sarcoma can often be easily mistaken or misdiagnosed. For Alice Cochrane, what was first thought to be just a mosquito bite was, in fact, sarcoma.

Working in a hospital in Northern Queensland in 2019 on contract from New Zealand, Alice was all too familiar with being bitten by all kinds of bugs. Usually, the bites would leave without any issues—except for one persistent bite on her left leg. Working in healthcare, Alice knew she had to get the lump checked out but assumed it was simply scar tissue from one of the many mosquito bites.

It wasn’t until 2023 that the persistent lump began to itch. Growing concerned, Alice paid a visit to her GP to get the lump examined again. Her GP thought the lump was strange and decided to remove the lump during the visit. Alice agreed to the mini operation to get rid of the lump, but what was supposed to be a 3.5cm incision turned into a 10cm incision to remove the lump. Six weeks after the surgery, Alice received an unexpected call to discover that the lump was caused by leiomyosarcoma. 

Having worked in the emergency department as a nurse, Alice was surprisingly calm about the diagnosis, “during those six weeks, I almost forgot about it because working in the Emergency Department, I’m sort of at peace with it, you know, if I’m going to die, I’m going to die.” Following the news, Alice left no stone unturned at work to find out more about sarcoma, but unfortunately, she couldn’t find anything. A quick Google search wasn’t too helpful either. “After I couldn’t find anything at work, I started googling, and after about 30 seconds, I thought to myself, this isn’t a good idea because, with all the information I found online, I thought I was going to be f**ked!”

Wasting no time, Alice got straight into it. Although her orthopaedic surgeon was excellent, there was a slight hiccup in her treatment process. “He ordered an MRI for the wrong leg! The lady on the phone for the MRI said he had booked the right leg, and I said switch that because it’s the left leg, won’t be going anywhere!” Following confirmation that the cancer had been localised, Alice met with the plastic surgeon who would perform her surgery. Four weeks after her MRI, Alice went in for surgery on her leg.

Fortunately for Alice, the surgery was a success. Surgery was the best option for Alice as leiomyosarcoma is not chemotherapy receptive and she declined radiation treatment due to the increased risks of the treatment. Her background in nursing assisted in the recovery phase. “I made sure I had everything ready for a smooth recovery; I organised someone to clean the house and got my daughter into kindy so she could have a good support system in case anything went wrong.” It wasn’t until after the surgery that the weight of what really happened hit Alice, as she said she felt like she was in organisational mode the whole time and had no time to process.

For anyone currently going through their sarcoma journey, Alice wants them to know to be ready to support themselves. “You can’t expect everyone to give back to you; I found some people I thought would be good in this situation were s**t, but the people who I thought would be s**t were great!”

Since her surgery, Alice has raised nearly $5,000 for West Coast Cancer Society and in preparation for her upcoming skydive. She encourages everyone to continue to support cancer society & sarcoma research in Australia and New Zealand.