A woman has revealed how friends kept asking if she was pregnant but it was actually a life-threatening tumour that burst in the bath.
When Sally-Anne Hawkins struggled to do up the top button on her jeans, she felt deflated.
The account manager had been dealing with bloat for months – to the point where friends often asked if she was expecting.
She simply put it down to weight gain, though feared something worse was going on when a pain in her pelvis began, along with needing the toilet every 15 minutes.
In a bid to soothe her body, the 39-year-old ran a hot bath and started to relax; until a sheer pain washed over her which left Sally-Anne collapsing to the floor in agony.
And, it turns out, a tumour had burst while in the tub.
“I staggered downstairs screaming for help,” Sally-Anne, from Portsmouth, told Need To Know.
“I was in agony and vomiting whenever I moved.
“I could barely take it in.
“It was a moment of total shock [when they said I had cancer].
“I never thought it could be that; but, looking back, I had all four main symptoms, though never put it down to this.”
Sally-Anne had originally been diagnosed with food poisoning and then an overactive bladder before being rushed to hospital in April 2024.
While there, a CT scan revealed that her right ovary had twisted and had a grapefruit-sized mass on it.
It was ovarian cancer.
A week later, surgery was carried out to remove her right ovary and her womb was washed out to remove any leftover matter from the tumour.
Sadly, there was a 75% chance it would return.
She said: “I refused to go through it all again.
“My partner, Andy, and I didn’t want kids, so I made the decision to have my remaining ovary removed.
“When they found another tumour, I knew I had made the right choice.”
Now, Sally-Anne is sharing her story to raise awareness and for the acronym BEAT which stands for bloating, eating difficulties, abdominal pain and toilet changes.
Currently, she’s having follow-up scans every six months.
She added: “Life is good now.
“I have a new outlook on life and read a saying which I live to: ‘People say you only live once, but you actually live everyday and only die once.’
“Looking back, I wish I listened more to my body.
“Keep pushing – you know your body.”
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