‘Pain out of this world’: Amputee reveals bizarre symptom

After 14 months of numbness and pain in her right leg, a Sydney mum’s strange new symptom led to a diagnosis she’d never contemplated.

When doctors hold her she needed to have her leg amputated, Anne Pantazis had just 10 days to wrap her head around what would be her ‘new normal’.

The Sydney mother-of-four had been struggling with a sore right leg for more than 14 months.

It began as a strange sensation of numbness, which would morph into excruciating pain the second she laid down in bed at night.

Her symptoms had doctors puzzled, performing countless tests and seeing a host of different specialists.

Then finally, after 14 months, small spots appeared on the inside of her thigh.

“They looked like mosquito bites but they weren’t going away,” Anne told news.com.au.

“One of the doctors ended up taking a biopsy – which came back as malignant – and, eventually, a scan of my leg.”

That’s when Anne finally got her diagnosis. She had soft tissue sarcoma, a rare form of cancer which had wrapped itself around a bundle of nerves as well as the femoral artery in her thigh.

Anne had her entire leg removed. Picture: Instagram: @anne__bionica

Anne before her leg amputation. Picture: Instagram: @anne__bionica

That is why, when she laid down, she was in such severe pain.

Anne was sent to Chris O’Brien Lifehouse, a non-for-profit cancer treatment centre based at RPA in Sydney, to see what treatment was available to her.

The now-55-year-old said she knew it wasn’t going to be good news when a group of doctors walked into her room at the facility.

They told her they wanted to do another biopsy.

“I knew deep down that I was going to potentially lose my leg, but I didn’t know where the amputation was going to be,” Anne said.

“I remember waking up in recovery [from the biopsy], and my orthopaedic surgeon was there, and I turned to him and told him I was losing my leg.

“He responded with, ‘Potentially.’ So I pushed on and asked if my whole femur was going to go. He told me to wait for the biopsy results.”

But, Anne was right. In early 2020 she was scheduled to have a hip disarticulation – an amputation only 1 per cent of people have where the entire leg is removed from the hip down.

She was devastated and had 10 days to get herself and her family used to what life would be like after the surgery.

The mum was in the hospital for weeks after the surgery. Picture: Instagram: @anne__bionica

“When I woke up, the pain was out of this world – and I’ve had babies,” she said.

“I woke up in the ICU, with my family around me, and I remember telling them it was a strange feeling because I knew my leg was no longer there but I could feel it hovering above the bed.

“The look on my husband’s face – he thought I’d gone nuts.”

It was a long road to recovery as, the day Anne came out of hospital, Sydney was plunged into lockdown for the very first time.

She said she needed help to lift up a pot of boiling water filled with pasta, had to relearn things such as sitting up and was envious of people getting to take their daily walks around the block.

“I knew that before this I would have been one of them,” Anne said.

She also now had to deal with chronic pain – something that will be present for the rest of her life.

Then an infection developed following the surgery, putting Anne back more than a year in terms of her rehabilitation as she had to have additional operations.

She is still getting used to her prosthetic. Picture: Instagram: @anne__bionica

She’s taking part in Go The Distance for the second year. Picture: Instagram: @anne__bionica

At the time, she became skilled at moving around on crutches and had to learn again how to do everyday tasks now that her body had completely changed.

The type of amputation Anne had meant that using a prosthetic would be difficult and any that she did use would have to be secured to her leg by being wrapped around her hips.

She wasn’t able to try any out until September 2021 because of the delay of the post-surgery infection.

“Doctors say I am doing well with the prosthetic,” Anne said, adding they are planning to use her as an example for other patients.

“I put it down to me being reasonably fit before and my time as a figure skater when I was younger. I have an abnormal amount of balance.”

She joked now she is a part-bionic machine.

Going the distance for cancer patients

For the second year in a row, Anne is taking part in Chris O’Brien Lifehouse’s Go the Distance campaign.

The campaign encourages Aussies to get active for the month of August and help fundraise $750,000 for patients who have to ‘go the distance’ (travel) to seek treatment.

Anne is taking on the challenge herself and inspiring others to do the same.

Anne has taken to sharing her journey on Instagram.