Pat Dady thought she had just pulled a muscle in her shoulder. Little did she realise she would have to have her whole shoulderblade and collarbone removed. Gemma Simms reports...

Pat Dady counts her lucky stars when she looks down at the scarred, sloped area where she once had a shoulder and collarbone.

When the hotel receptionist, who's in her early 50s, complained of an aching right shoulder, she never guessed it could have been a matter of life or death.

If she had left it another month before seeing her doctor, she would have endured a quarter amputation of her arm.

Pat, who lives in Albermarle Drive, Grove, discovered a malignant lump on her shoulder which needed removing.

The operation meant the surgeon had to take away her whole shoulderblade, collarbone and now she has no bone between the top of her arm and torso.

These days Pat, who works at the Upper Reaches Hotel, in Abingdon, has to be extremely careful. She cannot lift her right arm on its own and has a slope where her shoulder should be.

She has recently been given the all-clear from cancer but realises just how lucky she is to be alive.

She said: "I opened up a coffee shop in Wantage with a friend, which is what I had always wanted to do. After a busy week, my shoulder was aching so I changed pillows, turned mattresses and emptied out my handbag in case that was causing it but it still ached.

"Then my business partner suggested spraying some muscle relaxant on it - and she found a lump the size of a golf ball," recalled Pat. Even then she wasn't too worried, although she could now see the lump when she looked in the mirror.

She added: "In my stupidity I didn't worry about it because I had thought I had just pulled a muscle and that it was sticking out.

"I went to the doctor, who referred me to the John Radcliffe Hospital immediately. The doctor didn't say much, probably because he had never seen anything like it before."

Pat went for MRI and CT scans - intense X-rays of the muscle and tissue - and then had a biopsy.

"It all happened so quickly. This was at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, in Oxford, and I was told the lump was malignant and that it had to be taken out immediately.

"It was described to me as a piece of floating cartilage which attached itself to my scapula and it was growing and pushing against my ribcage, just millimetres away from my lung," said Pat.

Pat, a divorcee who has a 32-year-old son and an eight-year-old granddaughter, was in hospital for almost a month.

"When I came round after the operation my arm was strapped to me in a body sling. I couldn't get dressed or even put a bra on.

"I was told that if the consultant hadn't caught it in time, he would have had to do a quarter amputation.

"I was worried about losing my hair but apparently doctors can't treat bone with chemotherapy. They were 99 per cent certain they had removed it all.

"They took out my whole shoulderblade and collarbone, so now I have no bone between the top of my arm and my torso," explained Pat.

In an extremely rare procedure for what is a rare condition, the consultant - who has since retired - took out 12 muscles that work the upper arm. So now if Pat, who is right-handed, wants to write, she has to physically place her hand on the table with the aid of her left hand, although she does have use of her lower right arm. "I'm a healthy eater, I don't drink too much and I have never smoked in my life so I asked myself 'why me?'," said Pat.

Her balance was impaired after the operation and even now she can't walk too far unaided in case she falls.

She said: "I was in the garden once, using left-handed shears, when I lost my balance and broke my left wrist.

"I had that in plaster, the other arm still in a sling from the operation and then as I came out of the treatment room, I toppled over and twisted my ankle!" she laughed.

She is registered disabled and receives mobility and disability allowance.

"I went to see the doctor at the Nuffield who thought he could redistribute some of the muscle I have left into the shoulder so I could have more use.

"It really gave me a final glimpse of hope but it turned out I didn't have enough muscle and they couldn't give me a false shoulder- blade because there was nothing for them to attach it to.

"Now I feel lucky to be alive and my priorities have changed 100 per cent. I can now drive an automatic car and have a steering aid to make it easier, with an arm rest to support my right arm."

Pat can't slice bread with her left hand because she is predominantly right-handed and can't use a dustpan and brush, although she manages to do the vacuuming.

"I do swear when I try to change a duvet cover! People don't really understand and they just link cancer with death." But, she adds, "I was never negative and I don't really see the severity of it."

"It is still at the back of my mind but staff at the hospital have finally convinced me that I will be OK.

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