Caroline's call for better awareness of women's bladder cancer

Caroline Bryant, 51, was diagnosed with bladder cancer after noticing small amounts of blood in her urine.

Symptoms of bladder cancer in younger women can often be mistakenly associated with menstruation, the menopause or infections such as cystitis.

Caroline, who has two grown-up children and now helps care for her partner Jonny’s teenage son, said: “I first noticed something in the middle of May last year. There were two tiny spots of blood, the size of a pin head, on the paper. I’d had an operation to remove the lining of my womb two years before, so I just thought it might be related to that and didn’t think anything more of it.”

When it happened again a few weeks later Caroline went to see her doctor but was told that the symptoms were probably related to her operation and she was asked to monitor her symptoms for three months to see if they formed a pattern. In the meantime, Caroline was referred to a gynaecologist through private healthcare. She was sent for an ultrasound and an abnormal growth on the lining of her bladder, known as a polyp, was discovered. Following a cystoscopy – a medical procedure that uses a light and camera attached to a thin fibre optic tube - and CT scan, doctors confirmed that the growth was cancerous and the polyp was removed in August. It was then she was told she had aggressive grade three cancer.

“We were really shocked. I had none of the risk factors. I’d never smoked or drank excessively, I’d always eaten healthily and I wasn’t overweight.” She was given a choice of two treatment – bladder removal or a three year course of an immunotherapy drug. Caroline chose to have her bladder removed. She was one of the first patients to undergo pioneering robotic surgery led by consultant surgeons Sanjeev Kotwal and Stephen Prescott at St James’s University Hospital, Leeds

Caroline, who has joined a bladder cancer support group, also underwent a urostomy, which means her urine is now drained via an artificial opening called a stoma, which is connected to a bag on the outside of her body. “I think more consideration should be given to women who have had their bladders removed – everything seems to be aimed at men, who find it easier to cover up their bags. Women don’t want to feel they can’t wear the same clothes as they did before.