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Nurse Had Leg Amputated After Believing Cramp Was Due To Coronavirus Shifts

Nurse Had Leg Amputated After Believing Cramp Was Due To Coronavirus Shifts

Sette Buenaventura, 26, shrugged off going to see a doctor and put the pain down to the long shifts she was doing during Covid-19

Rebecca Shepherd

Rebecca Shepherd

A nurse who shrugged off a pain in her leg as a cramp from working overtime treating coronavirus patients was devastated to discover she had a cancerous tumour - and has had to have her leg removed to save her life.

Sette Buenaventura, 26, was working on the frontline when she noticed a throbbing pain in her leg in April. She left it, believing that it was the result of working gruelling 12-hour shifts at Salford Royal Hospital in Manchester and tried to ignore it.

However, when the pain grew so bad she struggled to walk she sought help from colleagues - and tests came back revealing that she had a sarcoma in her right leg.

Sette, from Eccles, Manchester, was devastated when doctors told her the only way they would be able to save her was to amputate her leg.

Caters

She's now speaking out in a bid to encourage other people not to put off going to get checked if they have any lingering pain.

Sette said: "When they told me I had to have one my legs removed I got very upset, but because I had no time to think about it I just got on with it knowing that I didn't have a choice.

"I can't look in the mirror now and I don't want to because it's too much to acknowledge that what I'm seeing in the mirror is the new me."

Caters

She went on: "It was a huge shock to the system because originally I was told I would just have some surgery and be left with a scar, but in the time it took them to take scans of the rest of my body to check for spreading the original lump doubled in size.

"They told me that the only way they could save my life was to remove my leg from the top of my knee. It was a horrible feeling, but It all happened so fast that I didn't really have time to process what was going on.

"I was diagnosed in April and my leg was gone by May, there was just no time to worry about it I just had to take in what they were saying."

Caters

Now, she wants to spread awareness for sarcoma and let people know that something as small as a pain in their leg can be a cause for real concern.

She added: "I think it's really important for anyone with a lingering pain to go and get it checked out, if I had caught this sooner, I would probably be in a different position now.

"Although I won't let this get in the way of my life goals, I feel like now that it has happened I should at least try to help stop it from occurring in other people like myself."

Featured Image Credit: Caters

Topics: Coronavirus, Community, UK