A UK man revealed that after dismissing signs of an infection thinking it was a UTI, he was diagnosed with terminal bladder cancer. Chris Cotton, from Cheshire, went to the doctor complaining of pain while urinating and having to use the toilet more frequently, the Daily Mail reported.
The 50-year-old dad decided to drink cranberry juice, which is sometimes believed to help with UTIs. He was prescribed antibiotics as well and soon after, his pain disappeared.
However, months later the pain came back and after multiple doctors were unable to find what was wrong, he decided to see a specialist. Tests concluded that he had muscle-invasive bladder cancer, where the tumour had grown into or through the muscle layer of the bladder wall.
Given 2 years to live
Further scans showed that the cancer was at an advanced stage and he was given between a year and two years to live. After the shocking diagnosis, the father of two urged people not to dismiss early signs of the disease as an infection.
“I went to the doctors, and explained what was going on, they took some urine samples and gave me some antibiotics. That seemed to work, it kind of went away for a while. A few months later, the pain came back, I did all sorts. I would drink cranberry juice, thinking that would flush through whatever was causing the pain, but that didn’t have much of an effect,” he recounted
After doctors removed a 10cm tumour from his bladder, he was told that the cancer had spread to his pelvic lymph nodes and to a blood vessel near the bladder.
Watch out for symptoms
“The oncologist said it was incurable. I asked what time frame we were looking at, it is a question that nobody wants to ask, and nobody wants to answer. She said that if we accept that the cancer is spreading, and other options don’t work, I would be looking at 12 to 24 months. Our world changed overnight to a world of learning new things about cancer, hospital appointments and difficult conversations with family and friends,” he said.
He urged people to be on the lookout for symptoms like his and to not ignore them. Bladder cancer symptoms include bood in urine, more frequent and painful urination, unexplained weight loss, fatigue, incontinence and abdominal pain. It is linked to smoking and is three times more likely to occur in men than women.
