A 32-YEAR-OLD Barnsley woman who has had two different types of cancer is the face of a campaign to help young people recognise the symptoms.
Lauren Bailey was diagnosed with a blood cancer in 2014 when she was 28, and was then diagnosed with spindle cell sarcoma of the bone in 2015 aged 29. It is extremely rare, making up between two and five per cent of all primary bone cancer cases.
Lauren, of Hope Street, Barnsley, said it was important people know the symptoms of bone cancer so it can be diagnosed quickly.
For more than five years, Lauren had a lump on the palm of her hand which was initially diagnosed as a ganglion cyst. She accepted the diagnosis, but started to get a shooting pain in her hand which interfered with her daily life. She was advised to see her GP and underwent surgery to have it removed. It was a massive shock to be told she had bone cancer.
Lauren said: “It started giving me pain at work, I was in communications and engineering in the RAF. So I went to get it checked out and had it removed. It was sent off for testing and it came back that it was bone cancer. I had previously been diagnosed with a blood disease which is classed as a blood cancer, so this was a second blow.
“It came as quite a shock, and was something else I had to take on.”
Lauren underwent three surgeries, but thankfully did not need any chemotherapy or radiotherapy.
She had painful physiotherapy and now has about 85 per cent of the function back in her hand. But she’s still having counselling.
She added: “I’m 32, I’m still coming to terms with it but I just try to get on with it. I was medically discharged from the RAF and felt I’d lost everything in the space of six months or so.
“It has been a difficult few years but it is what it is, you just have to get on with it. People say I don’t look poorly, but you just don’t know what people are going through. Being kind is the best way to be and makes you a better person.
“I have been very lucky. The doctors were quite surprised it hadn’t spread anywhere else. I’m really thankful to my close family and friends who have been a rock.”
Lauren now works for the Yorkshire Ambulance Service taking 999 calls, and has check-ups every few months.
