A happy-go-lucky UK woman was devastated to learn she needs her shoulder removed and replaced with metal after doctors discovered a malignant avocado-sized tumor in her left shoulder joint.
“[Being] told I’d need six to nine months of chemotherapy — it was the darkest day of my life,” Cat Holden, 23, lamented to SWNS. “I still can’t get my head around it.”
Holden, an assistant underwriter from Ingatestone, Essex, noticed her left shoulder twinging while rock climbing during a March 2023 family vacation in Great Yarmouth, England.
Holden thought she had slightly injured her muscle, maybe at the gym. The pain continued after she came off the wall, but she wasn’t worried enough to go to the doctor.
But in August 2023, she felt her shoulder twinge again while swimming in Bracklesham Bay, West Sussex.
She said she was hardly able to keep her head above water. She booked an appointment with a doctor who reportedly told her the shoulder “looked really inflamed” and diagnosed her with tendonitis.
“I was told it was an easy fix — I just needed rest and ibuprofen,” Holden recalled. “I guess I always thought it was something more — maybe a tear in the tendon.”
The Gen Zer did some physiotherapy before embarking on a “trip of a lifetime” to Sydney, Australia.
But she detected “something was really wrong” while climbing the Sydney bridge and skydiving.
Her shoulder went from aching to throbbing, disrupting her sleep.
“I got home from Australia in mid-November — I had no lumps, no bumps. But I couldn’t lift my left shoulder above a right angle,” Holden described. “I’d lay awake every night and feel a pulse in my shoulder. Even my physiotherapist noticed I’d really lost strength in my arm.”
Holden visited a shoulder specialist on Jan. 5, 2024. She was told she’d need an MRI as soon as possible.
“On the way to the appointment, I said to my mom, ‘I hope I’m not going to need any keyhole surgery or injections.’ We both just said it would’ve been really annoying,” Holden remembered.
“The consultant walked into the room and shook my hand — I knew something wasn’t right,” she continued. “He said, ‘We’ve found something really unusual in your shoulder — a tumor.'”
On March 8, after exploratory surgery and a biopsy, Holden was told she had a malignant giant cell tumor.
These types of bone tumors are rarely malignant.
She immediately got started on her months-long chemotherapy.
“The oncology team told me about all the potential chemo side-effects in one appointment. Suffice to say, it lasted over two hours,” Holden said. “I was told I could lose my hair, my hearing — and my immune system was going to go so low I’d be susceptible to things like sepsis.”
The self-professed “it girl” ended up losing her hair, eyebrows and eyelashes.
She has also developed tinnitus — the sound of ringing in her ears.
“I don’t recognize myself in the mirror anymore. I used to have long, blonde hair and was a healthy girl,” she shared.
“I have days where I think I look like a goblin — I’m losing weight, and I’m so pale,” she sighed. “Chemo makes me feel like I’ve been hit by a bus — I get nausea, sickness, diarrhea, fatigue, and the most awful mouth sores.”
Holden also worries about her ability to eventually start a family, so she had her eggs frozen in March.
Now, she’s entering her fifth round of chemotherapy, of 18. She plans to have her shoulder removed and replaced with metal on June 11, sparking concerns about lifelong mobility issues.
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“Getting cancer was a really pivotal point in my life because everything was happy-go-lucky, and I was confronted by something I never thought would happen,” she explained. “It’s devastating hearing, at 23, you’ll never have full function of your shoulder again.”
She added: “I’m going to carry the trauma of this with me forever — but I’ll be appreciating life so much more after this.”