I've Always Hated Sympathy

Jess Quinn was just nine years old when she was diagnosed with cancer, which led to groundbreaking surgery to remove her leg and save her young life. Now the Kiwi amputee model explains how she’s using her traumatic experience to help others.

- Judy Bailey

Jess Quinn never planned to be a big thing on Instagram – it “just happened”, as have so many things in her life. Beautiful, tall and with a mane of dark wavy hair, the camera loves her. She moves with a slow, easy grace. She is so graceful, in fact, that you’d be hard pressed to tell she walks with the aid of a prosthetic leg.

Jess lost her right leg to bone cancer when she was just nine years old. “I was fooling around with my sister, trying to stand on a ball when I fell off and fractured my femur.”

The femur is the largest, strongest bone in the body. It doesn’t fracture easily. In excruciating pain, she was taken to hospital, little realising this would be the beginning of a lifechanging journey. The break wouldn’t heal and four months later an MRI scan revealed cancer.

A gruelling round of chemotherapy followed and still the cancer remained. Eight months after the accident, she weighed just 18kg. Emotionally and physically exhausted, she was about to face an even tougher test. Doctors decided to perform a rare “rotationplasty” on the youngster. It was one of the first times such a surgery had been performed in this country. In a 14-hour operation, surgeons cut out the cancerous section of thigh bone, including the knee, then rotated Jess’ shin bone and foot and attached it to the hip. The heel then became a working knee. It was an extraordinary medical achievement and one that has allowed Jess to embrace life to the full because her new “knee” allows her a vastly improved range of movement.

The surgery, though, wasn’t the end of it. She still had to endure four more months of chemo to make sure the cancer was truly gone. She remembers Christmas Day of that year as her absolute low point. She was in hospital, surrounded by family and presents, but just didn’t have the strength to be interested in anyone or anything.