Join us as we talk to Carmen Scheffer.
Carmen noticed a bruise on her leg during a family holiday — the kind of thing most of us wouldn't look at twice. Over eight weeks, it grew, changed shape, took the feeling from her skin, and turned black. She was told to do what we are do with a bruise, to ice it and elevate her leg. What doctors didn’t know at the time was, it was angiosarcoma, a rare cancer most people have never heard of.
Weeks and months trying to get scans and answers led Carmen to fly home to Sydney for the care she couldn't get in Canada, and within a week had answers and a treatment plan. Fifteen rounds of chemo. A life changing above-knee amputation. Another nine more rounds of chemo. Then the hardest part began — mourning her body, her ability, the life she used to have — all while waiting for NDIS funding to receive a prosthesis just to start rebuilding.
Two years on, she's looking at turning what she's been through into something for others: a platform that would give newly diagnosed sarcoma patients the practical guidance she wishes she'd had.
This is a conversation about being dismissed, about fighting for a diagnosis across two health systems, and about how cancer changes people in ways many of us could never imagine.
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