A RARE BONE CANCER has caused 23-year-old Asha John to lose a limb after enduring months of agonising pain.
But while the aggressive disease threatened her life, she refused to be robbed of her most valuable possession – her smile.
The high-spirited young woman, who had an osteosarcoma tumour in her left knee, looked within to find courage and beauty during her toughest moments. Perhaps it was this valiant show of strength that left many people in awe of John, who said she had received countless messages on social media from well-wishers all over the world.
“I’m a proud survivor. Some people get amputations and hide it. They don’t want anybody to know they have an amputation. Well, I’m not that sort of person. I always have on something short or something to show off my legs because it went off for a reason; It went off to save my life,” she said during an interview with the SUNDAY SUN.
It was in 2014 that John’s life took a mysterious turn for the worse. The former St James Secondary student recalled paying very little attention to the knee pain that started in June of that year. The then 21-year-old was working as a cashier at Eddie’s Trading and dismissed the discomfort as a result of spending lots of time on her feet. But the pain got worse, she said.
From July to December, John visited several local doctors in a desperate search for answers. By November, she said she was walking with a limp from her swollen knee, which was bent backwards from a sudden onset of chikungunya. John, who said she’d never had a serious illness before 2014, was jolted into a state of worry. She grappled with the doctors’ theories, which included strained ligaments and arthritis.
“I remember telling one doctor to send me for an X-ray because so far they were just feeling my knee and telling me it is this and that but I needed to know for sure. So then I went to a private doctor who sent for an X-ray and blood tests.
“I had a scan and it [revealed] it was suprapatellar bursitis – fluid in the knee. I had the fluid drawn off and blood tests to see if I had arthritis but my blood levels showed that it wasn’t arthritis.”
John said she had to take six methotrexate tablets, an arthritis treatment, daily but got no relief. Because of her debilitating pain, she was even tempted to cancel a long-planned trip to visit her aunt, Lisa Cray, in England.
But on February 2, 2015, she arrived there with a medical note that stated she had arthritis. John said she believed her decision to go ahead with her travel plans saved her life.
During the proposed three-week stay, she ended up on several examination tables yet again. This time, a doctor in Wirral discovered the tumour. After further examination, she was told the cancer had already spread to her leg and it was too late to get a knee replacement. She was utterly devastated.
“When I heard that I had cancer that hit me for six. I was thinking, ‘Am I really going to make it through this?’ [Everybody] was crying for me because you know, when you hear cancer you’re thinking death.
“Then I know my mum worries a lot and would panic so I didn’t really want to tell her the news. I knew she would make me cry more if I heard her crying. So I got my aunt’s husband to call her,” she said.
John’s mother, Kathy, quickly jumped on a plane to comfort her. Within days of getting the bad news, the young woman was admitted to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham to undergo an above-the-knee amputation, giving her very little time to process what was happening. The day after the surgery, April 3, she opened her eyes feeling like nothing had changed.
“When I woke up I couldn’t feel the leg was gone. I still felt like I had my toes and stuff but I was frightened to move the sheet. It took me and my mum two days before we actually looked.
“I later went to another hospital and found out that the cancer had spread to my lungs. I started chemo on April 21, that was a Thursday and by Sunday, all my hair was gone. For nine months most of my time was spent in the hospital for chemo. It was hard. I had fevers. I couldn’t eat so I went from 140 pounds to 108 pounds,” she said.
John said she never imagined she would go through such a nightmarish experience. Just before the illness, the outgoing cancer survivor said she’d been enjoying her youth, spending lots of time going out for lunch, to the beach or shopping with her best friend, Tameesha Small. Then suddenly, everything changed. During the trying time, she said her family’s support helped her to cope.
“I wanted to set an example for [my siblings], to let them know trials happen in life but you still have to fight through it. My family was on my mind most of all and I know that if I didn’t try, it would’ve torn my mum apart. I did it for her because I know she is very caring and loving. I thought at leastif I had to die, my mum could say, ‘She tried her best’,” John said.
Asha, who aspires to be a physical therapist, said she refuses to be disheartened.
“I go to events like Q In The Community . . . And when I go out, people ask me things like, ‘Why don’t you park in the disabled parking [space]? Why you don’t park closer to the building?’ and I would say, ‘Who disabled? Nobody ain’t disabled and sweetheart, the walking is good for me’. And I leave the disabled parking for someone who really needs it,” she said.