Student dismissed by doctors over sore knee later found to have rare bone cancer
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Alicia Ortstad was brushed off before finally discovering she had a rare form of bone cancer. A 19-year-old student's persistent knee pain, initially dismissed as a minor ache, turned out to be a rare and aggressive form of bone cancer, necessitating a life-saving leg amputation.
![[Ortstad was back riding her horse weeks after the amputation]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/22/9/23/01JJ6CP6ZYZGPXV7N1KCEVHFWQ.jpeg)
Alicia Ortstad, a salad shop worker from Uppsala, Sweden first noticed the pain in the summer of 2023. By late August, her leg had dramatically swollen, resembling a bowling ball and making it impossible to bear weight. However, Ortstad’s complaints were initially brushed off by doctors.
![[Ortstad has shared her recovery journey on TikTok]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/22/9/44/01JJ6CPA161PTS7J6JDSAHHF55.jpeg)
“They just told me to rest and prescribed paracetamol,” she recalled. “But it only got worse.”. She said her pleas for an MRI scan were ignored and, instead, doctors gave her cortisone shots to manage the pain. As her knee continued to swell, she started experiencing frequent colds, blue veins on her knee, extreme fatigue, and trouble concentrating in class.
“I was falling asleep mid-lesson – that wasn’t like me,” she said. “The first thing the doctors said to me was to completely forget school for now. “But I was only half a term away from graduation.”. After finally getting a MRI scan in December 2023 the devastating diagnosis was revealed: osteosarcoma. Doctors informed her that amputation was the only way to prevent the cancer from spreading.
