A woman who thought she just had a UTI was diagnosed with a rare tissue cancer and had to have part of her vagina wall reconstructed using some of her bum cheek.
Brit Katie Arding, 29, had just settled down on the Gold Coast, Australia, with her boyfriend, Rhys Lord, 31, when she suddenly found herself unable to urinate.
She had struggled going to the toilet for the months previously but had put it down to a UTI.
But after going to hospital doctors found a 10cm mass on her pelvis, and following several weeks of testing, Katie was told she had a high grade pleomorphic spindle cell sarcoma - a rare tissue cancer.
Katie returned to the UK for treatment and had chemotherapy before she was able to undergo a 12-hour surgery to remove the tumour, her anus, rectum, uterus, cervix, fallopian tubes and one ovary.
Brit Katie Arding, 29, had just settled down on the Gold Coast, Australia, with her boyfriend, Rhys Lord, 31, when she suddenly found herself unable to urinate.
She had struggled going to the toilet for the months previously but had put it down to a UTI.
But after going to hospital doctors found a 10cm mass on her pelvis, and following several weeks of testing, Katie was told she had a high grade pleomorphic spindle cell sarcoma - a rare tissue cancer.
Katie returned to the UK for treatment and had chemotherapy before she was able to undergo a 12-hour surgery to remove the tumour, her anus, rectum, uterus, cervix, fallopian tubes and one ovary.
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00It was five months ago today that I was in surgery for 12 hours
00:04and I lost a lot of my organs in my pelvis.
00:07I lost my anus, my rectum and I had reconstruction of my vagina.
00:12So as you can imagine this was a major surgery
00:16and at the age of 29 it was quite a shock to have to have it done.
00:21So the reason why I had this surgery was because I had a rare cancer,
00:27a sarcoma cancer that was found in my pelvis
00:30and once I completed chemotherapy this was sort of my last option to give me the all clear.
00:36So this type of surgery is called a pelvic accentuation
00:40and I know there's another version called a total pelvic accentuation
00:43which I think is completely everything in your pelvis removed,
00:47like your bladder as well and that is one thing I managed to keep, my bladder.
00:51So even though I did keep my bladder I still have bladder function issues
00:56because they had to remove my bladder to get to the tumour that was in my pelvis
01:01and then they reconnected it to my kidneys
01:04and that's caused problems with being able to go for a week.
01:08So I have to self catheterise every day and I think it's slowly getting better though.
01:13I think over time the muscles and everything will slowly repair
01:18and hopefully that does eventually get better but we'll see.
01:23I'm five months out of this surgery and I'm doing really well
01:27and I was so scared before I started this journey
01:32that I thought I'm going to be a different person,
01:35my life's going to change forever and I'm really scared
01:39and if I could have just looked at where I am now
01:42and known that everything was going to be okay it would have been so much easier.
01:48So I'm just going to go over my symptoms
01:50and explain the story about how I got diagnosed at 28 at the time
01:55with a rare soft tissue sarcoma.
01:58So it was when me and my partner were travelling in 2023
02:03that I had the symptom of struggling to go for a wee.
02:07At the start of the year it was very mild and I hardly even noticed it
02:12but if I was to need a wee quite quickly and I was trying to push it out
02:17as I pushed it would sort of stop the wee from coming out.
02:21So throughout the year that got a bit worse and I was having UTI tests
02:27and all of that and nothing would ever come back
02:30but because I was travelling I just thought maybe it's just a change of environment
02:34and there's lots of different things going on so I wasn't too worried
02:38and obviously because I was young you never really think it's going to be anything sinister.
02:42So after the year we then got to Australia and settled down
02:47and that's when it started to get a lot worse.
02:49So it was my boyfriend's 30th birthday and I ended up not being able to go for a wee at all.
02:55It was completely blocked so we went to A&E
02:59and that's when they put the catheter in and drained out like 2 litres of urine
03:04and said that this isn't normal and we need to find out what was wrong.
03:08So they put me in a CT machine and when I came back out
03:11they said that I had a 10cm mass in my pelvis and they're not sure what it is.
03:17Obviously a 10cm is quite big, it's like a softball size
03:22so I found it quite crazy that I never knew that that was there
03:26and also really the only symptom that I had was that I wasn't able to go for a wee.
03:32So they asked me all the normal questions, did you lose any weight?
03:36Is there any other signs?
03:38I generally didn't lose any weight and I didn't have any other symptoms.
03:42So that was a bit wild and then they sent me to Gold Coast Hospital.
03:48I was admitted for 2 weeks in Gold Coast Hospital where they did every test they could
03:52and then after the 2 weeks they sent me to Brisbane
03:58and that's when the sarcoma specialist surgeon took my case
04:04and explained to me that I had a very rare aggressive form of sarcoma
04:10and he said it's similarities to a leiomyosarcoma or a rhabdomyosarcoma.
04:16He put me in the care of Professor Hayes which is one of the best surgeons for sarcoma
04:21so I'll be forever grateful for him for sending me there
04:24because they have looked after me so well and the treatment that I've had there has been amazing.
04:30So obviously I come back from Australia.
04:32I started treatment at the Royal Marsden pretty much straight away.
04:35I had 6 rounds of chemotherapy and that worked really well actually.
04:40It shrunk my tumour down from 10cm to like 7 or something like that
04:45and then they did say at first that I might not be able to have surgery
04:48because they thought I had spread to my bone in my pelvis
04:52but then after I did the chemo they then realised that they did a biopsy on my bone
04:58and it wasn't cancer so it was benign.
05:01So yeah, I was really lucky for that and that's what led me to then have my surgery
05:06and now I'm 5 months post-op and doing really well.
05:10And yeah, I will have scans every 3 months and I've just got to hope for the best
05:14and yeah, you know, sarcoma is a horrible cancer.
05:18It is very aggressive and it is known for coming back
05:21but I'm not going to worry about it too much.
05:23I'm just going to get on with my life and hope for the best.
05:28.
05:58.