Melanie’s Story: “I keep telling myself, it’s nothing I did to cause this, it just happened.”

While only a few weeks pregnant, Melanie Weisman noticed unusual urinary symptoms. Despite being initially dismissed as a UTI, she persisted because she felt something was wrong. After visible blood in her urine and severe back pain, an ultrasound revealed a mass in her bladder: it was a tumor. This experience underscored the importance of advocating for one’s health and trusting your instincts. This is her story:

I was 12 weeks pregnant with my second baby in September 2023. I was having urinary urgency as well as the feeling that I could not empty my bladder. This wasn’t my first pregnancy. I had a 10-month-old at home. I was thinking to myself, “Hmm, why am I leaking? This isn’t normal. This is my second kid. I didn’t have this with my first.” I figured they were close in age, so I just monitored the symptoms. Then I kept getting more symptoms. I kept emptying my bladder and then it would still leak afterwards. I was having pretty severe back pain and discomfort when I would urinate. I reached out to my OB since I was pregnant.

I was then told that I was pregnant and that I should drink more water. I was brushed off. I called back and said, “You know what? Something’s not right. Can I at least submit a urine culture?” I work in infection prevention. I know the signs/symptoms of a UTI. She started me on Macrobid before the urine culture came back which ended up being negative.

At that time, I had a speckle of blood in my urine after I wiped. A couple of days later, I was at a party and went to the restroom. I looked after I wiped and there was just blood. I went to the bathroom a couple of minutes later and there were clots in the toilet. So, being pregnant, I thought, “Am I losing this baby?” It began around 12 weeks and then at 16 weeks when all these symptoms emerged.

I reached out to the OB on call. He said “It’s probably just a UTI. You can come in if you want. It’s not abnormal in pregnancy to have UTI symptoms.” I said, “I’m coming in. Something’s not right.” At this point, I went to the Obstetrics ED at the Cleveland Clinic location where I work.  I am very fortunate that I had access to this.

At that point, the doctor proceeded to say, “You probably just have a kidney stone.” He ordered urine and blood work. Finally, he said, “Let me order an ultrasound of your kidneys and your bladder.” He came in the room and told me the ultrasounds were still pending, but that my blood work and urine looked good, and that I could probably get discharged.

He came back a little bit later and sat down, “Unfortunately, there’s something on your ultrasound.” He said there was some type of mass, but he didn’t know what it was. I went home that night with no answers and didn’t know what was going on. Luckily, we have a family friend who is a urologist. He was reassuring to me. He said, “Your age, your gender, it’s just a kidney stone. I’ll set you up with one of my colleagues.”

The next week, I met with a urologist, but he said he couldn’t do anything until a cystoscopy was done.

This was still September. We were supposed to go out of town on September 20, and I was planning on going straight to the airport after the procedure. The following week, I had a cystoscopy and my urologist said, “It’s a tumor.” He said it wasn’t in the lining that he could see but the best way to rid of it was surgery. I was 18 weeks pregnant at the time. Luckily, that was the best time to do surgery on a pregnant woman.

On October 5, I had surgery to remove the tumor, and it was the best-case scenario. It was not invasive. He removed it in one go and the pathology results came back the next day It was non-invasive, low-grade papillary urothelial carcinoma.

Since then, I’ve had one cystoscopy, which was in January of this year, 2024. Then I will go for another one in July. Other than that, no risk factors, no family history, never smoked a cigarette in my life. It was very bizarre, very random I would say.

When this happened and when I first got the bladder cancer diagnosis, I was pregnant, but it didn’t initially cross my mind. I had a 10-month-old baby at home. I didn’t cry until I got home from the ED. I was in the shower, and I thought, “What if my daughter doesn’t have a mom at 10 months old?” It still hasn’t hit me that I was pregnant at the time, and I had cancer. It’s still kind of like, “Maybe I fully haven’t processed?” Now, I can look at my son and I think, “Oh, you helped me listen to my symptoms and helped me get better care.”

The cystoscopy in January of 2024 was clear. The doctor said it was healing nicely.

I’m very lucky that my mom and mother-in-law live 10 minutes away. Their hands-on work was very supportive. Luckily, the procedure was fairly easy to handle, so I was able to go back to work the next week with accommodations if I wanted to stay home.

I don’t know if the emotions have set in. Now, I’m a little more cautious of my symptoms. I listen to my body more. If something’s not right, I’ll go in. I think what was triggering was just looking in the toilet and seeing blood that’s not normal. There was also the physical aspect. I had bad back pain, and the doctors would say, “You’re just pregnant.” I knew something was going on. I know my body. I just appreciate the care that I received and the timing of everything, because like I said, that was the best time to do surgery on a pregnant woman. The safest time that they were able to get the tumor out, and I didn’t have to wait 20 more weeks to do any surgery.

I think the emotions will catch up with me in the future and might be triggering or I may have some medical PTSD from this experience. At first, it’s the physical aspect. Living with a tumor, your body changes. Even now, when I go to the bathroom, I’m very cautious if I see blood or something. I haven’t, knock on wood, but I’m always looking. The physical toll can lead to the emotional too.

I’ve always been the type of person to listen to my body and if something’s not right.  If you think something is not normal, reach out to your physician. If they don’t listen, you need to switch doctors because you know your body better than anyone. They’re not inside your body. You need to have somebody who’s going to support you, and you must advocate for yourself. If something doesn’t feel right, hopefully, it’s nothing, but it could be something, so you just have to advocate for yourself.

I feel like there’s no rhyme or reason why this happened. I think the most important thing that I keep in mind is that my cancer was not attributed to anything I was doing. I keep telling myself, it’s nothing I did to cause this, it just happened.  

I knew Bladder Cancer Awareness Month was in May. I went to Instagram and was searching for bladder cancer, and I found BCAN. It was great. There were good posts that I was able to share on my story and on my Instagram page.

I encourage people to use their intuition. Continue to listen to your body in the future. Find a physician, or urologist that’s going to offer the best care for you. I’m always really hard on myself to make sure I know it was nothing that I was doing, nothing I did to cause this.