'I received chilling cancer diagnosis after realising I was unable to do one thing'
Share:
A gynaecologist left unable to dance at her work party due to back pain blamed it on bending over women for operations - until she discovered it was cancer. Ellissa Baskind blamed her worsening back pain on the number of operations she was carrying out as a consultant gynaecologist. The 46-year-old decided to seek medical help when her pain began affecting her daily life, particularly at her work Christmas party five years ago when she was unable to participate fully in the event.
Despite a clear x-ray, the mum-of-two was asked to urgently come into the hospital when doctors discovered abnormalities in her blood tests. There Ellissa was given the shock diagnosis of leukaemia and told to undergo further tests. Ellissa, who lives in Leeds, said she was in 'disbelief' over the results after experiencing no other symptoms than back pain between her shoulder blades. After an unsuccessful round of chemotherapy, Ellissa was given an urgent stem cell transplant before discovering a lump in her breast 18 months later.
Ellissa even began researching hospice care after discovering she had myeloid sarcoma, a rare type of cancerous tumour, but another stem cell transplant and further chemotherapy was finally successful. Ellissa said: "At the time [I was diagnosed] I was doing a lot of operations and you do get yourself into a lot of awkward positions. It's just the nature of the job. It's not uncommon in my line of work to have back pain. I was getting pain in my shoulder blades which was keeping me up at night.
