This article is a sidebar to "Meeting of the minds," an article about the Masonic Cancer Center's sarcoma research and treatment program.

In 1994, at age 15, Melissa Wellman felt excruciating pain behind her right knee. The pain became so intense that she was constantly in tears and couldn't walk. She was misdiagnosed twice. Finally, she was referred to Edward Cheng, M.D., professor of orthopedic surgery at the University of Minnesota.

"After that, it all happened very fast," she says. "Dr. Cheng is the best." She immediately received a brace for her leg to keep it from shattering and started a year long course of chemotherapy which shrank and killed the tumor. "As soon as I started the chemo, the pain stopped," she says.

Over time she needed multiple surgeries to remove the cancer-damaged part of her tibia and replace it with donor bone. In later surgeries, a bone was taken from her hip, a steel plate and rod were implanted in her leg, and her knee was replaced.

Returning to school proved another obstacle. "I missed my sophomore year of high school and was tutored at home," she says. "I returned to school for my junior year with almost no hair on my head, which wasn't easy."

Nonetheless, she rebounded and is cancer-free. "How you heal has a lot to do with your attitude," she says. Now 28 years of age, Wellman works for an oral surgery clinic in Minneapolis. "I like working with patients, and I'm happy to be on the other side of the desk," she says.

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This article was originally published in the Masonic Cancer Center 2006 Annual Report (PDF).