Pedicurist Alarms Mother of 2 of Spot on Foot but It Goes Ignored. 5 Years Later, Foot Amputated
Jenn Andrews’ life has recently been marked by two brave decisions she made. The first was leaving the corporate world.
Andrews followed her passion and decided to become a health and wellness coach. Part of her new job was encouraging others to get moving.
She had no idea that her own ability to move would be severely challenged later down the road. Though this road leading to her second major life decision began with a pedicure, it was anything but a relaxing or enjoyable situation in which to be.
Andrews was pregnant with her first child when the pedicure technician noticed a mass on her right foot. It was the size of a pea and nothing major could be done while she was pregnant anyway.
Family friends guessed that the mass was a ganglion cyst, and doctors expressed little to no concern. Andrews did not have much time between her first and second pregnancies, so she ignored the pea-sized mass until she could not ignore it any longer.
It had grown to the size of a golf ball. Still, the alarming growth was likely hormonal, Andrews thought. After her second was born, doctors surgically removed the mass.
“10 days after I went to an appointment with my 17-month old daughter and 3-month old son in tow, to what I expected to be just an incision check and possibly take my stitches out. Instead – I was blind sided to find out the mass removed was actually a low grade myxoid sarcoma,” Andrews wrote on her blog.
Every three months, her foot and lungs were scanned to check for any new cancer growth the first year after the mass removal. In year two, she went only semi-annually and then annually the third year.
On Jan. 2, three years had passed since Andrews had the cancerous cyst removed. Unfortunately, the cancer was back.
Amputation of her right foot was the safest option to ensure cancer would not return and metastasize. Andrews felt depressed at the thought of losing her foot, but she also felt hopeful as she imagined the gift of living to see her children grow up, graduate, get married, and have their own babies.
Andrews decided to undergo the foot amputation and has since had an appointment with a prosthetist. Running a 5K race is one of her goals to complete by the end of the year.
Andrews told The Charlotte Observer, “I thought I was gonna wake up to looking down and crying and feeling this sense of loss. Instead, I felt this sense of relief that this battle, that this hardship, that this nightmare of a couple months was over, and now I can move forward.”
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