Hi,

Firstly I just want to say I've read through so many peoples stories on this forum, I feel humbled by the bravery and courage of all of you - I want to send best wishes and prayers to each and every one of you. 

I'm not sure where to start to with my story to be honest, between Dec 2019 to now I have had many symptoms - first was muscle weakness on the right side of my body which I noticed during PT sessions in Dec 2019, but I didn't worry too much about because I thought it was random. I've had vertigo, confusion and memory loss, loss of appetite, shoulder pains which would cause migraines, body aches, nausea however the main symptom I had was pain in my lower back, pelvic area and right side.

Now, I know what you're thinking - a year of all those symptoms? Why did you ignore them? Truth is - I rarely had more than 1 of these symptoms at the same time/same day - and a lot of these I put down to being run down, tiredness or just general stress. Never did I believe for a second that they were significant enough to be truly concerned. I had even had a blood test/urine test back in May and after these came back normal I kindve reaffirmed to myself that things were fine and I was just probably being dramatic. 
 

Then in September, I had noticed my periods had became significantly longer - they had jumped from 3-4 days to 8 days, I had also started spotting in between periods - again, I was not truly alarmed as I had just came back from a week long girls holiday which had involved lots of drinking, I had also had a smear at the end of 2019 which had came back clear, so I told myself I would see how I felt and if it happened again in October I would investigate further, lo and behold - it happened again. I spent days and days in Oct calling my GP daily desperately trying to get an appointment however due to COVID it impossible, and I was always told to call back the next day. When I realised this was getting me no where, I got up early and decided to go queue outside my GP before they opened, in a bid to score an appointment - I managed to get a call back from a nurse, I explained my situation - my worries, my concerns, my symptoms and she had again arranged for swabbing and urine samples to be taken. She also assured me that if these came back normal then they would conduct further tests to try and determine the cause of my symptoms. I will just add by this time (mid November) my lower back pain and side pain was constant, I was taken strong pain killers (provided by a friend) daily just to get through. 

A few days passed and the pain was getting worse, I was also starting to panic and worry - something in my gut was starting to tell me that something was seriously wrong. I remember watching television one night by myself and having this strange feeling come over me that I was going to die, and I remember just sobbing, uncontrollably. Still, at that point I didn't tell anyone my worries because apart of me felt I was being dramatic and I am not the type of person to put my worries on other people, I am quite a private person. 

The following day, I spoke to the nurse who had told me all my test results were normal, and I broke down - I sobbed and I told her that the pain was getting worse I was worried I had some type of cancer, because my mum had cancer. She arranged for me to have an emergency appointment with a GP that day, he had exammed my cervix (due to my irregular bleeding) and found that everything was normal but he had taken some further swabs to be sure, he exammed my tummy area and this was when he had found that my liver was significantly enlarged, he explained to me this could be due to serious illness - possible causes could be liver disease, heart problems or cancer. When he said cancer - I knew (how could you possibly know you're thinking?!) but trust me, I just knew.

This was on a Friday and the doctor had arranged for an emergency ultrasound for the Monday. That weekend was the longest weekend of my life, not just because of the physical pain but because of the mental torture I had started to resign myself too - I was convinced I was going to die, I wasn't sleeping or eating.

Monday finally came around and I crawled to my ultrasound in agony. I turned to the radiologist conducting my ultrasound and I asked him if he could talk me through what he was seeing, because I was desperate to know. He advised he couldn't and that I would definitely be getting my results that day.

2 hours later I got the phone call from GP - she told me they had found a large tumour which was 12.7cm x 8cm (the size of a large grapefruit) involving my right kidney. I had been given an urgent suspected cancer referral to a consultant, the following Tuesday I had a CT scan, after my CT scan the radiographer approached me and said "wow, that's quite some tumour you have there, have you been having symptoms for a while" her concern for me scared me and my heart was in the pit of my stomach.

The next day (Wednesday 16th December) I was told that the tumour was infact 12.7cm x 11cm and it was an agressive stage 3 kidney cancer and that the cancer had entered my main artery and was trying to spread. I was also told I had a condition called DVT and had an embolism on my lung and a blood clot on my leg. This meant that they couldn't operate right away to remove the tumour, due to blood clots making me high risk. If they were to operate straight away there would be a good chance I wouldn't make it. 

My whole world shattered. 

Today is Boxing Day, I was diagnosed with cancer 10 days ago and I'll be honest, my life has come to an halt, nothing ever prepares you for something like this, there are so many things I am still longing from life as a single, 29 year old woman and right now it's hard to picture any of them, but I know I have to be strong because what other choice do I have? 

I have met the surgeon who will be operating on me on 5th January - he explained that I will be having a Radical Open Nephrectomy and he would be removing my entire right kidney, he also explained that due the cancer entering the main artery, they may need to remove all/part of this artery, if the cancer cannot be removed safely. I was shocked to learn that this is something they could do safely? But he assured me that whilst this is a high risk procedure, you can live a normal and fufilling life without this artery, he explained to me that "if the M1 is closed, you would use an A road" and your body will do the same and will find other means to pump blood to your heart. Clever analogy if you ask me. 

Congratulations if you made it this far with my story, I have been told I have a tendency to waffle lol, however I wanted to explain exactly what has happened with me, in the hope it might help someone else in the future. There are so many red flags and signals I ignored because I truly believed 'would never happen to me' I now reflect and realise how naive and ignorant I was, however I sadly also realise how much of a common assumption this is. You never believe it will happen to you.

I cannot express my gratitude enough for the overwhelming support and love I have been showed during these very dark and bleak days, I have been joking with people telling them literally feel like a celeb with the amount of flowers, cards, gifts and general well wishes I have received from people, one thing it has definitely re-affirmed to me is that people are generally good, and people do care. I decided to be so public and open with my story for this exact reason, despite being such a private person I knew I needed to be surrounded by love and support if I was to get through this, not just physically - but mentally. 

Hayley x