Anal cancer gone but have squamous cell tumours on my skin and pain in my hips!

Hi Susie G

Congratulations Susie, you must be very relieved. Tomorrow I am exactly 1 year post treatment, all my physical check-ups since then have been clear and I have my annual scans in September. That will be a very anxious time and I just have to hope that everything will be okay. 

Sorry to hear about these other SCC’s you’ve had. I’ve not had any others to my knowledge. Where have your other SCC’s been and how did you know they were SCC’s? I’m interested to know so I know what to look out for!

As for the pain in your hips, I also have pain. Although I wouldn’t describe it has terribly painful more very uncomfortable. Since treatment finished, my legs, in particular ache every day. Some days I notice it more than others. If I sit down for any amount of time, I’m slow getting up and everything is stiff for the first several steps. I exercise every day mixture of jogging, yoga and aerobics and this helps at the time but the aching is there again the next day. My hips are stiff and a lot less flexible than they were.

I’ve raised this with my oncologist. He said its probably down to loosing bone density which happens to all of us post 40 anyway, but that the radiation speeds things up. Its strange though as I don’t feel the aching is coming from my bones more from my muscles.

After speaking with a physio friend of mine. She said that when bones are damaged the muscles contract around the bone to protect it and this can then cause aching. This makes more sense to me. I will raise this with my oncologist again and hope that when I have my scans in September that I might get more answers then. 

You are not alone with the aching and joint pain.

Sarah x

Hi Susie, 

I’ve just had my annual scans, CT yesterday, finished treatment June 2018, results are due at my next appointment on 2nd July. I also had a dermatology appointment yesterday as my GP suspected I had a SCC on my back! The dermatologist said it was a BCC & actually detected another one also that I didn’t even know was there & I had them both removed with a local anaesthetic there & then. I was told these were predominantly caused by sun damage, unfortunately I have been a bit of a sun worshipper in the past although I can categorically say I am no more!!!  I also have a lot of pain especially in my left hip, I have some osteoarthritis in the hip, the pain worried me after I was diagnosed February last year & my GP ordered an X-ray for me that showed some reduced space in my hip joint typical of osteoarthritis. My hip was particularly painful last week so I’m going to speak to my oncologist when I go for my scan review to see if he can offer me a little reassurance. Sometimes the worry seems never ending doesn’t it!!

Nicola 

Hi Susie, how are you doing? I may have SCC on my bum and wondering how things turned out for you?