I ignored the painless lump on my hand for 12 years and thought it was nothing. Eventually the doctors told me it was a rare form of cancer with only one devastating treatment
- ATTENTION: GRAPHIC CONTENT
- The mother had two fingers amputated due to cancer
- She had a small bump on her hand for 12 years
A single mother had to have two fingers amputated after a tiny lump on her hand was found to be a rare form of cancer.
Gold Coast woman Rosie-May Fisher, 32, had to give up her hairstyling career after being shocked last year.
Ms Fisher, who has a three-year-old son, Bobby, said her job was “all I ever really worked and dreamed about” and being a single mother is now a challenging task.
“At his age, it’s difficult to dress him up — even with two hands,” Fisher told 7NEWS.
Gold Coast woman Rosie-May Fisher, 32, lost two fingers after she was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer in 2022
Ms. Fisher had her middle and ring fingers amputated after being shocked to have cancer
“I can’t carry him or tie his shoelaces, or my own shoelaces, I can’t shop, push a cart, push a stroller.”
Ms Fisher said she first noticed the lump on her left palm in 2010 and it initially looked “soft and painless”.
After not taking much notice of it, Ms. Fisher asked a GP about it at an independent appointment about two years later.
A subsequent MRI scan showed that it was an unsuspecting and harmless sebaceous cyst.
Ms Fisher said things started to change after Bobby was born in 2020.
“The bump got bigger and hurt a little, to the point that holding my brush a certain way was quite painful,” she said.
Ms Fisher then went back to the GP and asked to have the “disturbing and painful” bump removed.
She had to wait a year before she could have surgery as it was deemed non-urgent and eventually it was removed in October 2022.
But then, when she had an appointment a week later to have her bandage fixed, Ms Fisher said the surgeon “came in with a really serious look on his face”.
“She told me that after the lump was removed, they did a biopsy of the lump and the result said it was a rare type of cancer,” Fisher said.
Ms Fisher said the shocking announcement left her “in disbelief”.
The cancer, epithelioid sarcoma, is a rare, slow-growing malignant tumor that usually begins in the superficial tissues of the hand or forearm and for which surgery is the most common treatment.
Ms Fisher is still recovering from the life-changing ordeal
Ms Fisher was sent for further scans and after seeing a cancer specialist in Brisbane, she received the devastating news that the best way to stop the cancer was to amputate the middle and ring fingers on her left hand.
Ms Fisher said she had difficulty accepting the prognosis and was “out of her head”.
She got a second opinion from a Sydney-based specialist who told her: “You have to do it for your son.”
Ms Fisher was told that radiation was not an effective treatment for the condition, so in December she finally agreed to have both of her fingers amputated.
She said she was “still trying to get back on my feet” after the ordeal.
“It changed my life physically, mentally and emotionally,” she said.
“I don’t have a career.” “I don’t have nearly as much power as my other hand and I hate how it looks.”
Fisher wants to caution others to get a second medical opinion and believes an earlier biopsy could have prevented the amputation.
A GoFundMe has been set up to support Ms. Fisher.
“Rosie is the kindest person who would do anything for the people she loves,” GoFundMe organizers wrote on the page.