Megan’s Story: Blood in Her Urine Happened Only Once

When Megan noticed blood in her urine after running and hiking, she assumed the two were connected.

“I thought maybe I’d pulled a muscle,” she says. “I’d never seen anything like that before.”

Because it was Sunday, she saw a healthcare provider first thing Monday morning. The provider suspected a kidney stone and told her to get an ultrasound. The bleeding stopped by the next day, and the ultrasound came back normal. Since they looked only at her kidneys, it didn’t reveal what was causing the bleeding.

With no pain or other symptoms, Megan put it behind her.

Regular doctor visits were a way of life

Megan was used to being proactive about her health. Years earlier, genetic testing revealed she carries a BRCA2 mutation. Because it greatly increased her risk of breast and ovarian cancer, she chose a preventive hysterectomy and oophorectomy in her 30s, followed by a preventive double mastectomy.

Those decisions weren’t easy, but they gave her peace of mind.

“I felt like I had done everything I was supposed to do too,” she says.

She saw her oncologist every year and stayed proactive about her health. Bladder cancer, though, had never been discussed.

Cancer wasn’t the surprise. The type was.

About two months later, she mentioned the blood in her urine and ultrasound during her annual appointment with her oncologist. It wasn’t the reason for the visit. It was simply something unusual she thought she should mention.

Her oncologist immediately saw it differently than the doctor Megan saw previously.

“She stopped me and said, ‘That is not the standard of care for blood in your urine. You should always see a urologist, even if it only happens once.'”

Megan scheduled the appointment.

One episode of blood in her urine was enough

At 45, Megan didn’t fit the profile most people associate with bladder cancer.

She is a female, had never smoked, had never worked around industrial chemicals and stayed active. Aside from that single episode of blood in her urine, she felt healthy.

By the time she saw the urologist, everything seemed reassuring. Her urine test was normal. There was no blood in her urine anymore, and the doctor expected the cystoscopy to confirm that everything looked fine.

“Everything looks healthy,” she told Megan.

Then she paused.

“Oh…there’s one.”

Megan remembers asking, “One what?”

“She said, ‘That’s a tumor.'”

Watching the screen, she saw healthy bladder tissue give way to something that reminded her of coral.

“I was just in shock,” she says. “Bladder cancer wasn’t even on my radar.”

Deep dive and preparing for surgery

Megan quickly found the BCAN website. “I spent that weekend just devouring everything because I knew nothing about bladder cancer or the [TURBT] surgery. And then I started reading the patient stories and I was really attracted to stories by women and just hearing common threads there and how they’re doing now.”

A few days after her diagnosis, Megan underwent a transurethral resection of bladder tumor (TURBT). During surgery, her urologist found that her tumor extended into the opening of her left ureter. Fortunately, it had not grown into the muscle of the bladder, making it non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC).

Like many people hearing the words “you have cancer,” Megan wanted the tumor removed as quickly as possible.

“When someone tells you that you have cancer, you just want it out.”

Learning about treatment options

After her surgery, Megan sought a second opinion and follow-up care at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. It took several months to get an appointment.

As she learned more about bladder cancer, she realized there were treatment options she hadn’t known to ask about. One was chemotherapy placed directly into the bladder immediately after TURBT, which can help reduce the risk of recurrence for some patients with non-muscle invasive bladder cancer. By the time she learned about it, that opportunity had passed.

“It was disappointing,” she says. “I didn’t know it was something I should have asked about.”

The experience changed the advice she gives to other patients.

“If your situation allows, don’t feel like everything has to happen the next day. Take time to understand your diagnosis, ask questions and make sure you’re comfortable with your care team and treatment plan.”

Finding support through BCAN

“I also found a virtual support group that I attended only a few times. But that was helpful for me just to hear from people that have very different situations than me but are still out living their life, said Megan.

“I was really inspired to hear there was a woman that doesn’t have her bladder anymore but is traveling the world and it hasn’t changed her life. And that was so inspirational to me because I love to travel and be active and I just don’t want my life cut short by cancer.”

A question that finally had an answer

Even after treatment, Megan kept coming back to the same question.

Why had she developed bladder cancer?

She wasn’t an older man. She had never smoked. She didn’t have the risk factors most people associate with the disease.

“I always felt there had to be a connection.”

In 2026, Megan read a study suggesting women with BRCA2 mutations may have a significantly higher risk of bladder cancer than previously recognized. The findings are still new, and there are no formal screening guidelines based on this research, but for Megan they confirmed something she had suspected from the beginning.

She hopes the study encourages more research and more conversations between patients with BRCA2 mutations and their healthcare teams.