The bump on a 38-year-old woman’s head was found to be a rare skin cancer, causing her to lose part of her skull.
- DFSP is characterized by lesions in the form of indurated pinkish or purple-red fibrous plaques or dermal nodules on the trunk, extremities, head and neck.
- The mortality rate is low (< 3% at 10 years). However, the risk of recurrence is high.
38-year-old mum Barbora Hájková wasn’t too concerned about the little bump on her head. But his partner, yes. He convinced him to consult. It turned out that this protrusion on the temple was not linked to a blow, but to a very rare skin cancer.
Her bump was a rare cancer
The 30-year-old who lived in the Czech Republic consulted an ENT specialist. “I have to say that I was a little annoyed by the exams and didn’t want to go anywhere else, as I was convinced that I had nothing wrong and that I had at most a lump on my head”she acknowledges.
But the ultrasound showed that it was not so trivial and it became necessary to do a biopsy of the lump. “At this point, I was getting a little anxious, but I couldn’t imagine any horror scenarios”she explains to Sun.
“The wait was uncomfortable, but it was nothing compared to the announcement of the results: protuberant dermatofibrosarcoma”she continues.
It is a rare skin cancer, also called dermatofibrosarcoma of Darier and Ferrand (or DFSP from the English dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans). The infiltrating malignant tumor, initially installed in the deep layers of the skin, gradually destroys the adjacent tissues.
His doctor was rather reassuring during the diagnosis. However, after reviewing the examinations performed, the surgeon called her personally to tell her that they would need to remove part of her skull.
She had part of her skull amputated
Barbora Hájková recalls in the pages of the Sun: “The doctor told me, ‘if you had it on a limb, for example, it would be optimal to treat it by amputation, but we just can’t amputate your head’.”
The concern then grew in the thirty-something. “It wasn’t entirely clear what they would have to cut out of my head and how deeply the tumor had burrowed into my skull. All this appeared only during the operation“, she confides.
She came out of the operating room with a hole in her head. Barbora was devastated by the image in the mirror, but even more by her daughter’s rejection during the early days. The 15-month-old did not recognize her mother.
“I have to admit, I didn’t look much like myself with the swollen head, the bruises and the bandages.” Now she assures that she is fine and no longer bothered that her head is not completely round.
“Surgery was a very radical solution”, explains the patient who did not have to undergo any other treatment. If she has no cognitive or medical sequelae of the disease, she is still being monitored by doctors”because this monster tends to come back”.
Now in charge of communication for the F*** Cancer project association, she is dedicated to raising awareness of cancer among the general public. “Time is very precious to me and I don’t want to waste it”she concludes.
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