For weeks, frontline nurse Sette Buenaventura ignored the pain in her leg to concentrate on caring for patients with coronavirus. But, doctors eventually discovered a tumor, and now her leg has been amputated.
Buenaventura, a 26-year-old nurse at Salford Royal Hospital in Greater Manchester, told BBC News that she ignored a cramp in her right calf for two months while working on the front lines of the virus. The pain made it difficult to walk, but Buenaventura assumed it was just a side effect of the long hours on her feet in the hospital.
“We were there every hour to help anyone who needed us. I got a real taste for that level of dedication,” she told the BBC. “That’s what working in hospitals is: when you forget your own pain because you’re busy helping other people, which I like to do. But everything comes at a cost.”
The UK is one of the global hotspots for the virus, with more than 310,000 confirmed cases and more than 46,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
When she could no longer ignore the pain, Buenaventura had her scoop scanned in April, revealing a sarcoma. She was told that the cancerous tumor had swelled to the “size of a golf ball.”
MERCURY PRESS / BBC News
In May, doctors said their only chance of survival was amputation.
“When they told me I had to remove my leg, I was badly overwhelmed, but because I did not have time to think about it, I just went along,” she said. “I like to look after myself and try my best to be healthy. I work in health care and never expected this to happen to me.”
Since the operation, Buenaventura has been provided with a prosthetic leg. She hopes to return to work in November.
She urged people to learn from their mistakes and take their pain seriously.
“I think it’s really important for anyone with a lingering pain to control it,” she said. “If I had caught this earlier, I would probably be in a different position now.”
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