A woman who endured months of bloating and was repeatedly asked if she was pregnant discovered she had ovarian cancer after a tumour ruptured while she was in the bath. Sally-Anne Hawkins, 39, from Portsmouth, had struggled to button her jeans and faced awkward questions about pregnancy, initially dismissing the changes as weight gain.
Escalating Symptoms
Her discomfort soon escalated into pelvic pain and a desperate need to use the toilet every 15 minutes. After being incorrectly diagnosed with food poisoning and an overactive bladder, her ordeal reached a terrifying climax in April 2024 when a grapefruit-sized cancerous mass ruptured in the tub.
“I staggered downstairs screaming for help. I was in agony and vomiting whenever I moved,” recalled Sally-Anne, an account manager. She was rushed to the hospital, where a CT scan revealed that her right ovary had twisted and a mass had been detected—ovarian cancer.
Shock Diagnosis
“I could barely take it in. It was a moment of total shock,” she said. “I never thought it could be that, but looking back I had all four main symptoms, though never put it down to this.”
One week later, surgeons removed her right ovary and washed out her womb to clean any leftover matter from the ruptured tumour. Given a sobering 75 per cent chance of the cancer returning, Sally-Anne made the difficult decision to have her other ovary removed—a choice that later proved correct when another tumour was found.
Raising Awareness
Sally-Anne, who now undergoes follow-up scans every six months, 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.”
She is now sharing her story to raise awareness of the symptoms, urging others to remember the acronym BEAT: bloating, eating difficulties, abdominal pain, and toilet changes. “Life is good now. I have a new outlook on life and read a saying which I live by: ‘People say you only live once, but you actually live every day and only die once.’ Looking back, I wish I listened more to my body. Keep pushing—you know your body,” she advised.
