Woman who blamed knee pain on drunken fall made sinister discovery before breaking leg while sat on sofa
A woman had blamed her pain on a drunken accident, until her leg later snapped while simply sitting on the sofa.
Lucy Worthington recalls the pain in her knee started after she fell over while enjoying a night out.
She went to her GP over the pain, who referred her for an x-ray, which confusingly came back clear.
Lucy decided it must have been the drunken fall or from walking too much.
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The 27-year-old was referred for physiotherapy in case it was a trapped nerve or a muscular problem, but then a 'grapefruit-sized lump' began growing on her knee which ended up in causing horrifying moment while relaxing at home.
She recalls how the pain was 'intense' and soon became much worse, at which point she went back to the GP and she was referred for an MRI at Bristol's Royal Infirmary in August 2024.
After the MRI, Lucy was told she had cancer.
She was diagnosed with cancerous sarcoma in her bone, and the large lump on her knee was actually a 14cm tumour growing out of her bone.
According to the NHS, cancer that starts in the bones is called primary bone cancer, or sarcoma, and is very rare.
Horrifyingly for Lucy, in September 2024 she was simply sat on the sofa when her leg snapped, as the cancer had destroyed her bone density.
Lucy explained: "I thought I had just gotten drunk and hurt myself falling over, as time went on and the pain wasn't going away I thought what I was told, that it was a physio issue and that I would do the exercises and it would go away.
"I do a lot of walking and they thought it was a pulled muscle or a trapped nerve.
"It felt like someone was crushing my knee, or grabbing it and twisting it, it was a very intense horrible pain that no painkillers would help. I was prescribed codeine and morphine and none of it would work."
Fortunately, there was some good news about treatment, she says: "I was told it's likely curable depending on how my body reacts to the chemo."
Lucy said it came as a shock at just 27 years old: "You always attribute this to older people, in your 20s it's not something you think about. I was googling my symptoms but I never actually thought it would be cancer.
"I had a gut feeling it might be something serious but I was in shock, it didn't really set in."
Following her leg snapping, Lucy had to go into surgery and feared she would lose her leg, but the surgeon managed to save her from amputation.
"I definitely thought I could die, when I broke my leg and was admitted to hospital, me and my family thought I could die any minute, I was really not well," she said.
Unfortunately, Lucy got sepsis following the surgery and did not respond well to chemo initially.
However, despite these setbacks, as of June 2025, she has finished the chemo and is 'excited to get her life back on track,' after a 'very worrying' time.
"Last week, I finished all of the chemo. I'm feeling amazing, so happy, I'm a bit scared of the scans to come in case it comes back or gone anywhere else but now I'm excited to get my life back on track."
Lucy said as well as the lump there was one other main symptom she noticed: "I had night sweats, which was the main thing other than pain and the lump."
Despite this though, she says the lump being discovered saved her life: "If the tumour hadn't grown out of the bone it could have been too late, so any aches or pains please get them checked because you never know."
Jen Thomas