When playing with her children, Rachel Bretbrunner fell.  She felt acute pain in one leg.  After waiting about six weeks, she sought medical attention, and an MRI revealed a tumor in the leg.  Doctors scheduled surgery to remove the tumor.  When Rachel woke up from the surgery, her husband told her she had bone cancer.  Given an option, she chose knee replacement surgery over a chemotherapy regimen.

 

Rachel Bretbrunner of Halsey, Oregon loves to hike and camp.  It was during a camping trip that two of her kids, ages eleven and thirteen, were rough housing.  When she joined in, she fell, and experienced pain in her entire leg; but when she got home from camping, the pain was pretty much in her lower leg.

 

About a month and a half later, Rachel was seen by a doctor.  An MRI revealed a tumor in the leg.  That was followed by a biopsy, which showed the tumor was benign, and surgery was scheduled to remove the tumor.  However, when they went in, opened up Rachel’s knee to take out the tumor, they learned there was cancer in the tumor.  It was eaten away part of her tibia.  Doctors removed that part of the tibia and they put in an adhesive to hold the bone together.  When Rachel regained consciousness, her husband informed her she had a sarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer.

 

At this point, Rachel still had the tumor.  She was told she could have it removed and then have two rounds of chemotherapy before the surgery and two rounds after they remove the tumor, or they could do major knee replacement surgery to make sure the cancer didn’t come back in two years.  She chose knee replacement surgery, but as it turned out, Rachel still had to undergo chemotherapy after the surgery.

 

As for the surgical procedure, doctors also reconstructed her leg because the metal that they had`to use to replace her tibia, they put cobalt blue in it and the blue showed through her skin.  As a result, they had`to remove a tendon from her ankle and a muscle out of her foot, then they had to wrap the muscle around the tendon to hold it.  Rachel says to this day, she walks with a limp because of the muscle missing from her foot. 

 

She was being seen by a sarcoma specialist at a hospital two hours away in Portland, which is where Rachel underwent her chemotherapy regimen.  Seven days after she was discharged from the hospital, she had neutropenic fevers and ended up going back for three more days of antibiotics. 

 

Rachel Brutbrunner suffered many of the common side effects associated with chemotherapy.  They included mouth sores, hair loss and cognitive issues.

 

Rachel says before cancer, she lived a life without pain.  Now she feels pain every day, but it is not excruciating pain.  Although she can camp, she can no longer hike because f the pain in her foot, but Rachel says she is happy to be alive and in a position to raise her kids.

 

Additional Resources:

 

Support Group:

 

Kickin’ Cancer: https://www.kicking-cancer.org