Probably the most amazing cancer survivor story I've read

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Manitoban Janis Ollson and family are in magazine ads for the esteemed Mayo Clinic for a very good reason: she's the first person surgeons cut in half, removed much of a cancerous midsection, then put back together with a happy ending.

On Friday, the Balmoral, Man., woman was at her daughter's school to talk to students about Sunday's Terry Fox Run, and how funds raised for cancer research are keeping people like her alive.

Three years ago, the 31-year-old was pregnant with her second child and had been suffering years of horrible back pain when Canadian doctors diagnosed her with bone cancer, chondrosarcoma.

Sarcoma experts in Toronto said they'd literally have to cut her in half to get at the untreatable cancer, remove her leg, lower spine and half her pelvis.

The problem was they didn't know how to put her back together again.

So, this is an extremely experimental surgery -- three other people besides this lady have had it. Only one of those others lived.

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Ollson became the first person to receive a "pogo stick" rebuild, with her one good leg fused to her body with the reshaped bone from the amputated leg.

Three years later, she is alive and kickin' -- snowmobiling and grocery shopping -- with her husband and two kids on their half acre in Balmoral.

"Where we live, we use ATVs and snowmobiles. I use my ATV to take my daughter to school... There really isn't a whole lot that stops me," she said.

"I don't like to be left out."

Today, she's cancer-free, although she lives with the knowledge it could return at any time.

She uses a prosthetic pelvis and leg, wheelchair, crutches or walker, depending on what she's doing and where she's going.

"I have no problem getting around. If I need to, I'll crawl (up stairs) or scooch like a kid," she said.

"I don't want people to think 'we can't invite the Ollsons because they can't get in here with a wheelchair.' "

"I want to live life to its fullest."

In 2007, her life nearly ended.

... after her healthy son, Leiland, was delivered by C-section Feb. 21, 2007, the needle biopsy was performed. But that was inconclusive, even with sarcoma specialists in Toronto and at the Mayo Clinic weighing in. It was only after she travelled to Toronto for a biopsy that it was confirmed: a chondrosarcoma, the size of a Pizza Pop, one of the largest the experts had ever seen.

Chemotherapy and radiation couldn't help. The cancer had spread through several bones, her pelvis, lower spine and into a lot of muscle tissue. Her only chance for survival was to remove it.

But removal, specialists said, might not be the best option. The Toronto specialist said he could remove the tumour but didn't know if she could be put back together. Without a lower spine, half her pelvis and a leg, there was nothing to attach her remaining healthy leg to.

"I was in complete shock. I felt like I was going to throw up," she said.

A young man with a similar sarcoma decided not to have it removed so he could live like a normal person until it killed him, the doctor told her.

"Once you have kids, that's not an option," Ollson said.

The Toronto doctor said he'd consult with Mayo Clinic experts.

"He said, 'We'll see if we can come up with a plan so you can see your children grow.' "

That they did...

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After much rehabilitation, she put her mobility to the test this May, walking down the aisle of their church on husband Daryl's arm, on her way to the altar to renew their vows on their 10th anniversary. She used just a cane and a prosthetic leg with a microprocessor. She says she's leaned on Daryl, her high school sweetheart, throughout the ordeal.

"He's the glue. It's been a lot for him to endure."

Ollson says she's never dwelled on "why me?"

"We don't know when it started... It's not known why anybody gets it. There's no cause for it, no genetic link," said the woman with no cancer in her immediate family.

"There's some purpose to all this whether I know it or not," she said.

Just... an amazing, amazing story. I hope she lives to see her grandkids, if her boy and girl have any...

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It was only after she travelled to Toronto for a biopsy that it was confirmed: a chondrosarcoma, the size of a Pizza Pop, one of the largest the experts had ever seen.

Is it wrong that my first thought was, "What's a Pizza Pop?"

myeerah wrote:

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It was only after she travelled to Toronto for a biopsy that it was confirmed: a chondrosarcoma, the size of a Pizza Pop, one of the largest the experts had ever seen.

Is it wrong that my first thought was, "What's a Pizza Pop?"

No, no. My first thought was "Yes, but how big is that exactly?" It seems like an odd oversight on behalf of the writer.

But yeah, I don't know why there's this prejudice that amputees are helpless. All the ones I've met can do pretty much the same things that normal people can. One of my godfather's friends had only two or three (I think? Not all five, at least) fingers on one hand and he apparently had a talent for woodcarving, so much so that one could not tell by looking at his figurines that they had been made by a dude with not even one full hand (he also had no legs, but got along for many years without a wheelchair). Like my godfather said, "You make do with what you have."