Niki Downs, 39, says she held on for as long as she could. As a passionate and lifelong NHS supporter, she was determined not to have to go private. But the bladder pain and discomfort she’d been experiencing for five years had become so severe she was having to go to the toilet as many as eight times a night.
The PR and lifestyle consultant had been seeing various GPs in Hackney about the symptoms for five years and was always told it was probably nothing to worry about — a sleep problem or, bizarrely, a symptom of the fact that she ate salad too close to bedtime. But when a new GP near her parents’ house detected two non-cancerous, grapefruit-sized growths (fibroids) in her uterus and told her that her vital organs could suffer irreversible damage if she didn’t have immediate surgery, she was forced to cast her loyalty aside.
