A GRANDMOTHER who was repeatedly told she had a bladder infection was in fact suffering from deadly bladder cancer.

Julie Morawaka, of Great Wakering, was told by doctors she had just two years to live.

She underwent a 12 hour operation to save her life, with surgeons cutting out her womb, bladder and part of her private parts.

Ms Morawaka, speaking to the Daily Mail, said: “I just wasn’t getting better and I didn’t think it was normal.

“It crossed my mind that it could be bladder cancer, but there wasn’t any blood in my urine, which is the classic sign.”

Ms Morawaka, 55, went to the doctors repeatedly in 2016 with difficulty urinating. But she was given antibiotics and told it was simply a bladder infection.

When she was still affected months later she demanded a scan from the doctor. It revealed she had a cancerous tumour the size of a walnut which was taking over half her bladder.

She has been left with nerve damage and needing a catheter. But Ms Morawaka said she felt lucky to be alive.

Recent scans have shown she is now cancer free.

In January this year, Ms Morawaka celebrated the arrival of her first grandchild, Myla, something she once thought she would never live to see.

The mother-of-three said: ‘Meeting Myla was incredibly emotional for me.

‘After being diagnosed, I really never thought I’d see the day when I became a grandma.

‘Holding little Myla for the first time, everything that I thought was never going to happen suddenly became real.’

Ms Morawaka says although her operation had bad effects she is grateful it saved her life

She now wants to raise awareness about bladder cancer because she did not have the tell-tale sign of blood in her urine

She said: “It isn’t one of those cancers that gets talked about much, not in the same way as breast cancer or leukaemia.

“It’s the Cinderella of cancers – the poor relation.

“If I’d had the scan earlier some of my terrible ordeal could have been avoided.”