The woman shares signs of the rare tumor of giant cells that was eating her bone

A 37-year-old woman says that if she had not diligently call the doctors’ offices and insisted on seeing ASAP, she would still have a rare, massive tumor growing inside her, eating away in her bones .

Ashley Christine knew something was seriously wrong last fall when leg pain grew so bad that he couldn’t walk. But she was received with a lack of emergency as she tried to schedule an MRI, and later, a meeting with an oncologist in Los Angeles, where she lives.

After months, Ashley told the post, she was finally told that she had an aggressive tumor, one in a million that had to be removed immediately or would continue to grow inside it.

Ashley’s pain began in early October.

“If I stayed would be a sharp pain. If I lay down, it would be dull, shocked, “she said, adding that she lasted all the way from the ankle to the knee.

Initially, one doctor said she just should have a torn ligament and recommend physical therapy. However, Ashley was sure that something was “really wrong” and asked for an MRI in the country.

Unfortunately, MRI’s fastest meeting she could get was a month away, so Ashley had no choice but to try to continue with her life in the meantime.

But on a trip to Portugal on Thanksgiving, she threw – and suddenly, the pain was worse.

“I was convinced that my leg was broken,” she said. “I really couldn’t walk.” But she also felt sure it was probably worse than a broken bone.

“I do skiing, snow, climbing rock and I have done some quite pleasant damage to my body from those activities, so I’m very familiar with what feels a broken bone. I am like, it is near but not It’s enough, ”she recalled.

Doctors in Portugal were not help, also insisting she would have to wait ages for an MRI, the test she felt more confident than giving her answers to her illness.

After she returned home to La-sking using a carriage at the airport-it finally got her MRI in mid-December.

The results were startling: a massive tumor, simple as a day, was growing inside her leg.

But even though she got to see the scan, she had to battle to make someone explain to her – and learn about the future steps she had to take for her health.

In fact, her oncologist’s office said she would have to wait more than a month to see her, telling her she couldn’t get a meeting by the end of January.

“I’m like,” Oh, well. So you want me to stroll with a tumor my leg for a month and a half? “She said.” I didn’t want to lose my leg because it was, like, eating my bone. I could feel it. ”

Ashley said she was “leaving” because she “essentially waited for a month to find out if I had cancer”.

Through tears, she managed to get the oncologist’s office to squeeze it before Christmas.

This is when everyone finally started taking it seriously. Looking at the scan, the doctor told her she believed she had a tumor of “very large” giant cells.

“He said,” Yes, it’s very rare, but when we find one, they are massive. We have to get this out, ‘”Ashley said.” It was basically eating my bone and compromising my tibia, and will continue to grow and grow and grow. Does not stop. ”

Giant cell tumors are literally a one-in-million disease: according to the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, they only occur in about one in a million people.

Although they are non -cancerous, they are very aggressive and continue to grow without treatment. They are the most common in the foot, near the knee joint, and can also destroy the surrounding bones.

Finally, on January 13, two months after her pain began and a month before she was initially said she could meet an oncologist-asley underwent two-hour surgery to remove the tumor.

The surgeon also used cement to fill the cracks in her bone that had caused the tumor.

Now Ashley is recovering and will continue to need controls for the rest of her life so that a new tumor of giant cells does not appear.

Although she is grateful to have taken care of – and a great fan of her oncologist – she is still frustrated that it took so long to get the medical appointments she needed, even though she was sure she had something very wrong.

And the only reason it didn’t take more, she said, is because she was so aggressive to make sure she was seen and accommodated.

“I had a lung disease in college, which is how I learned how to be very proactive about these things,” she said. “When all this happened, I was very convinced to call and just being all over it. And then I realized how many people don’t know how to do it.”

This accomplishment inspired Ashley, a mathematician who educates people for stem, to post about her health in Tiktok – where a video for her tumor has accumulated nearly three million views.

“People need to know that they need to be very aggressive, unfortunately because someone always stops you, whether they are doctors, nurses, administrator, billing, insurance company – like half of them will stay on your way, “She said.

“You have to call everyone and really fight for it.”