Woman who felt 'niggling pain' in her leg on dog walk given 'incurable' diagnosis

A woman who felt a 'niggling pain' in her leg was left devastated after being told she had 'incurable' cancer. Jo Hodkinson noticed the ache while out on her walks with her pet dog Elvis, which prompted her to visit the doctors.

The 48-year-old accountant was given the devastating diagnosis that the breast cancer that she had been treated for 10 years ago had returned to her hip, thigh and pelvic bones.

She has had to undergo major surgery that would leave her in a wheelchair. Speaking about her diagnosis, she said: “It was pretty much a decade to the day since I had finished my treatment for breast cancer. In spring 2011 I had a lumpectomy followed by chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

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"I had taken tamoxifen (hormone therapy for breast cancer) for a decade and felt like I’d made it. But you couldn’t write it, the timing was unreal.

“I just felt numb when I was told that the niggling pain in my leg was cancer. I couldn’t believe it because it didn’t even hurt that much at the time, but my bones were literally crumbling, and it was in my lymph nodes.

"I was told I needed a major operation and I’d be in a wheelchair for a little while at least. I felt like my life was over if I couldn’t walk Elvis again.”

In May 2021, Jo, from Mossley, Tameside, was admitted for surgery at The Royal Orthopaedic Hospital, in Birmingham and due to Covid restrictions at the time she couldn’t have any visitors.

It was around the same time when she was warned it was likely she would always walk with a limp. The operation involved a proximal femoral endoprosthetic replacement - which replaces the hip joint and a section of the top end of the thigh bone, followed