Insect bite led to rare cancer diagnosis for West Coast nurse

Thursday, 9 July 2026

Alice Cochrane was diagnosed with leiomyosarcoma, a rare and aggressive smooth muscle cancer.

A nurse’s decision to work in a remote Aboriginal community in Australia inadvertently saved her life.

A sandfly bite that refused to heal turned out to be the thing that exposed a rare and aggressive cancer hiding in her leg.

Alice Cochrane, a nurse from Dobson on the West Coast, took a 12-week contract in Kowanyama, a remote Aboriginal community in Northern Queensland, in 2019 to fund private jaw surgery to correct a problematic under-bite.

Alice Cochrane on the day she got bitten by insects while fishing in Far North Queensland.

While out on a boat gathering crabs and looking at enormous saltwater crocodiles, she was bitten by bugs across her body. One bite never healed, leaving what looked like a small lump of scar tissue on her leg.

Cochrane returned to New Zealand, had her jaw surgery, bought a house, and had a daughter. About four years later the lump was still there.

“It wasn't growing. It was just the same and it was just annoying me. As an inquisitive nurse, I thought, ‘oh, bugger it’. So I went into my GP and said ‘I’ve got this annoying bump on my leg. Can you just whip me into a clinic and flick it off one day?’,” she said.

He booked her in, but what had been planned as a 2cm incision became a 10cm cut.

“It was like a fatty yellow tumour,” she said. “We all sort of looked at each other and thought, oh, damn, that's not scar tissue.”

The biopsy took two months to grade because of the cancer's rarity. Her doctor called with the results: leiomyosarcoma, a rare and aggressive smooth muscle cancer.

“I was in the car with my daughter in the back asleep. I never cry and I was bawling. That’s when life changed.”

She knew leiomyosarcoma carried poor survival odds, particularly when it spreads to smooth muscle tissue in organs. Lab results also showed the cancer would not be receptive to chemotherapy.

Alice Cochrane has a scar on her thigh after her leiomyosarcoma, a rare and aggressive smooth muscle cancer was removed.

Luckily, specialists confirmed the tumour was isolated to her leg and had not yet spread.

A plastic surgeon removed the tumour with wide margins, standard practice for sarcoma given how aggressively it can behave.

Cochrane recovered at home on crutches, managing much of her own wound dressing with support from district nurses.

She said her surgeon explained the bite likely injured a blood capillary, which activated the dormant cancer to start growing.

She said if she had not been bitten, it might have started growing undetected, or if she had ignored the lump the outcome would have been much worse.

Hamish, Alice and their daughter Maddie Cochrane, from Dobson on the West Coast.

“Sarcomas grow really quick. I would have been dead and left my poor baby. And my poor husband.”

Now almost 40, Cochrane has moved from three-monthly to six-monthly check-ups. Every morning she checks her lymph nodes for anything unusual. Any suspicious lump triggers an emergency MRI referral.

She is helping raise awareness during global Sarcoma Awareness Month and calling on people to support the Great Sarcoma Plank-A-thon, where people can take part in a sponsored plank challenge throughout July.

Australia and New Zealand Sarcoma Association chief executive Denise Caruso said one in three, or 30.6%, of people diagnosed with sarcoma will not survive beyond five years, yet the disease receives less than 1% of Australia's and New Zealand’s cancer research funding.

She said sarcoma patients often faced delayed diagnosis, limited treatment options and significant out-of-pocket costs.

“Many families are forced to travel long distances to access specialist care, while researchers continue to fight for funding to advance desperately needed treatments,” she said.

Funds raised by the association had gone towards clinical trials that led to new treatment options.

“We've helped secure access to new treatments and screening programs that are changing lives, but there is still so much more to do,” she said.

“For a cancer that takes such a heavy toll on young New Zealanders, the level of awareness and funding simply doesn’t match the need.”

Medical oncologist Joanna Connor said sarcoma was a rare and aggressive group of cancers that can develop in bone, cartilage or soft tissue that disproportionately affect children, teenagers and young adults.

“Sarcoma is uncommon, which means it’s not always front‑of‑mind for clinicians or the community. Too often, sarcoma is mistaken for a sports injury or growing pains,” she said.

“That rarity creates a dangerous gap, one where symptoms are overlooked and diagnosis is delayed. Awareness is not just helpful, it’s lifesaving,” she said.