A new Married at First Sight groom has spoken out about an undetected symptom he experienced before receiving a devastating cancer diagnosis, having initially put it down to nothing ‘serious’.
Bin man and former semi-professional footballer Ryan Livesey joined the show yesterday, having been paired up with Glasgow makeup artist Sionainn Carmichael.
But while many fans are excited to see if the newly-formed couple will go the distance, the 28-year-old is also using his platform to raise awareness for a hugely important cause.
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Ryan, who shares a six-year-old son called Leo with his ex, was 22 when he faced everyone’s worst nightmare: cancer.
Speaking to The Sun, he recalled how it all started with an ‘embarrassing’ habit, admitting he’d been reluctant to see a doctor.
"I started wetting the bed, it was really embarrassing but I put it down to having too much to drink and of course, I didn't tell anyone and hid it,” he explained.
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“I’d go to the toilet and not feel like I was emptying my bladder properly.
“I’d have to go again 20 minutes later because I couldn’t hold it in.
“Looking back now, I should have known something was wrong but because the increase in frequency happened gradually, I was able to ignore it.
“If I’d gone to the doctors when I first experienced symptoms in 2016, things could have been different.
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“Every bloke reading this will know there are posters in public toilets with health messages on them but we tend to ignore them.”
It was a few months later, after a night out in 2017, that Ryan first noticed blood in his urine.
Again, however, he put this down to the booze, saying: “It wasn’t loads, maybe a bottle top full so I just put it down to drinking too much and tried not to think too much about it.”
Ryan ignored a family member’s pleas to see his GP, despite experiencing a mounting number of symptoms.
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“I suppose a bit of me felt embarrassed about it, but unfortunately, it didn’t go away,” he said.
But in May that year, he knew something was ‘wrong’ when he ‘urinated pretty much pure blood’ after football training one night.
“I was 22 years old, my ex-partner was pregnant with my son, who was due in November that year,” Ryan continued.
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“I was about to be a father, and I had weed pure blood.
“Yes I knew I had something wrong, but I didn’t think for a second it’d be something serious. I thought at worst it’d be kidney stones or something like that.”
After making an appointment with his doctor the following month, Ryan was diagnosed with stage two bladder cancer.
“I was in complete shock,” he said, recalling how he went ‘instantly numb’.
“It was like the world closed in around me. All I could think about was my son who was due in five months.
“I’d had symptoms for seven months and it’d taken me that long to see a doctor.”
Ryan was told he’d require surgery to remove the cancer, along with chemotherapy.
He now wishes he’d gone to get checked out much sooner, saying it ‘really can be life or death’.
“If I’d read a story like this when I was experiencing my own symptoms, it’d have made me call the doctor sooner I think,” Ryan said.
“When you’re young, you think you’re going to last forever. You think cancer is something that affects other people, but men need to get better at taking care of themselves."
According to the NHS, blood in your urine is the ‘most common’ symptom of bladder cancer.
“You may notice streaks of blood in your urine or the blood may turn your urine brown,” its website advises.
“The blood isn't always noticeable and it may come and go.”
Less common symptoms of bladder cancer include: a need to urinate on a more frequent basis; sudden urges to urinate; and a burning sensation when passing urine.
If bladder cancer reaches an advanced stage and has spread, symptoms can include: pelvic pain; bone pain; unintentional weight loss; and swelling of the legs.
“If you have blood in your urine – even if it comes and goes – you should visit your GP, so the cause can be investigated,” the NHS adds.
“Having blood in your urine doesn't mean you definitely have bladder cancer.”
Topics: Cancer, Health, Married At First Sight, Reality TV, TV And Film
Jess Hardiman