There is a common saying in the cancer community that everyone has a story. Here’s mine.
My name is Jasmine Heuring. In 2015, at 26 years old, I was diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma in my left tibia. At the time, I was working at a private gym in Winnipeg Manitoba and active in a few different sports. One night, I was playing tennis at the facility after work. There was nothing different about this night, except that I very clearly remember trying to run to the other side of the court mid-way through and my leg giving out. For the rest of the night, I had trouble taking impact on my left leg. It felt weak and fragile. Less than a month later, I was having trouble walking on heels. Soon after that, I was having trouble walking at all and waking up with intense calf pain. I bemoaned the sports injury and complained about where I would find time to do the physiotherapy.
From there, the story is the same. I was informally diagnosed on my 26th birthday, my champagne birthday. Then, chemotherapy, surgery, more chemotherapy and more surgery. In the end, I had 12 rounds of chemotherapy and over 12 general and orthopedic surgeries ,eventually resulting in a knee disarticulation, or, more simply, a through-the-knee amputation, in February 2024.
As of February 2025, I am officially 10 years out since diagnosis and cancer-free for almost the same length of time. It’s given me a lot of time to reflect. I speak about my experience often, I tell the story of how it happened; that I was lucky that it was caught early and that I had a relatively great healthcare experience. I stay positive and focus on outcomes. The only skill that I do really well is bulldoze forward. I also believe that there is a subconscious form of peer pressure from the public to remain resilient in the face of challenge. We don’t talk enough about all that is lost in the face of illness. This time, I thought I would share some of the things that I don’t talk about often or don’t hear others talk about.
Cancer was the easy part. I was declared cancer-free shortly after the first primary surgery. To set the stage, prior to diagnosis, I was 25 years old, tall, and blonde. It’s not easy to admit or something that I take pride in, however the reality is that I was used to compliments on my legs and my body. I loved dressing up and wearing heels. I didn’t own a car at the time, and walked everywhere, often up to an hour at a time to go to work. I was active, playing tennis and squash often multiple times a week, and in the gym many early mornings. I was also used to picking up house and moving my life whenever the mood struck. In fact, I had just been unceremoniously dumped two months before being diagnosed and was planning to make a fresh start in another city. The absolute worst thing that you could do to meat that moment in my life is take away my independence and invincible youth.
I’ve spent 4 of the last 10 years on crutches, and 9 of the last 10 years in chronic pain. You don’t realize the effect that chronic pain has on you, mentally and physically, until it’s gone. Making the decision to initially amputate below the knee in 2017 was easy. I could barely walk and had been through multiple correction surgeries. It clearly wasn’t working and, on doing some research, it seemed like I’d be much more competent on a prosthetic than what was left of my leg. The skin graft made it an ugly specimen, I wasn’t losing a pristine limb. Making the decision to remove half of my knee joint was significantly harder.
After around my 5th year of surgeries, I stopped attending cancer support groups. I felt that the people who first started attending the groups at around the same time as me had moved on years ago. They were living full lives, getting married, having children…moving on. And I was stuck, waiting on ever more surgical intervention and most of the time, barely mobile. Around year 8, I felt that even my friends and family had checked out. I was working and leading a seemingly average life. They were tired of hearing me complain about why life wasn’t normal. Who could blame them? I was alive, what more mattered? I have one close friend who had broken up with a long-term boyfriend, been heartbroken for two years, started dating again, married, and had two children in the time it had taken me to get back on my feet with a knee disarticulation surgery. As a result of the chemotherapy, I’m on life-time hormone medication and can no longer have children. Perhaps even more frustrating, the side effects of finding that never-ending hormonal balance: cystic acne, mood swings, night sweats, among others, are a common occurrence. That began at 27 years old. The decision to take the risks associated was made at 26. The cancer was in my calf? What was the big deal?
More recently, last October, I was “fired” by the counselor that I was seeing through our provincial Cancer Care organization, less than 5 months after the life-altering knee disarticulation surgery. It was posed that the system could no longer support this type of service to me after a decade and the question - at what point are my problems no longer directly related to cancer? - had been raised. Well, the answer is probably not at the point where I lost my knee joint less than half a year prior. I appealed it through a patient representative and was still denied. I was told that it had just been too long. These are the types of discussions that are often shielded from the view of the general public when it comes to long-term illness and complications.
The hoops that I jump through to get a prosthetic capable of supporting a normal, active, 36-year-old lifestyle are similarly exhausting. My current prosthetic is around $50,000. Jointly paid for between the War Amps and my healthcare insurance. The prosthetic that the provincial government currently funds for free is the technological equivalent of a carved wooden wheel on a modern car. I consider myself lucky to have the prosthetic that I do, however it is actually only a mid-tier example of what is available to wealthier or better insured (and even more lucky!) amputees.
Now, at 36 years old, I find myself living a suspended life, often straddling the line between feeling like life is short and needing to live that life to its fullest, and that, as a single woman, I need to plan for future retirement and potential further complications. How do you tell people that you still vividly remember the last time that you showered on two legs? The last time that you went into the ocean, unassisted? Or the last time that you felt young? Attractive? Free?
It’s not all bad. During the time that I didn’t feel like an eligible dating partner and I couldn’t do the hobbies that I loved, I diverted that energy to my career. And I’m secretly proud to say that I now work as a director in healthcare, overseeing a large portfolio with 7 direct reports and over 450 indirect reports. I was recently accepted into a prestigious Executive MBA program based on my work and life experience. As a high school graduate and university drop out, it’s been a challenging road to get here while battling my own healthcare demons. It’s not easy to be proud because in order to do that you need to be proud of all of the failures that led here.
For the first time since diagnosis, I’m regularly playing tennis, badminton, and golfing. Maybe even more motivating, I’m dreaming again; of things I want to do and see past that five-year mark. For a long time, my dreams were dormant. There had been too many instances of the clock running out on them. It’s been a relief to learn that I still know how to dream.
For all of those wins, there are sacrifices. I’m far too slow to play squash at any level now. It’s taken so much energy and time to learn how to jog and to take stairs, an ongoing process. I’ve spent a decade in a city that I never meant to call home, and still isn’t home. With every year that passes, it’s a lonelier existence in a world that is designed for generational growth, partnership, and family.
There’s a relatively well-known comic of a tiger nearing the end of its life in a zoo. When death comes to the tiger’s cage to say that it’s time, the tiger asks for a final request before moving on. Death grants that request. And the final box shows the tiger, running through open grasslands, unencumbered by cages.
I’m grateful for the oncologists and surgeons who went to bat every single time, saving my life and ultimately providing the quality of life that I currently enjoy. It’s why I choose to work in healthcare and volunteer for cancer initiatives. My “zoo” and “cage” are well cared for and safe existence that many would envy. Isn’t it funny that life seems to cut off the legs of those that were born to run free and force those, who would prefer the routine, to run?
All of the good doesn’t stop me from hoping that one day I get a final request and, if I do, I think you can all imagine what I would wish for.
