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A woman shared that she was stuck on an NHS waitlist for nearly a year after informing her GP that she was experiencing bloating and hip pain. When the appointment finally came around, she was told she had just two years to live.

Tamara Mulley, who was 27 at the time, said doctors initially believed she had "something like endometriosis", so in February 2023, she was referred to a gynaecologist. But just ten months later, in December 2023, Ms Mulley began suffering from a "really bad cough", fatigue, and weight loss.

In January 2024, she was diagnosed with stage 4 cholangiocarcinoma, also known as bile duct cancer. She said she felt "helpless" to be told that she had "two years to live."

Ms Mulley, now aged 29, said she experienced bloating when she was 16 years old, and told her doctor about it multiple times over the years.

When she suddenly began experiencing hip pain and fatigue in January 2023, she thought she had "niggled" herself in the gym. However, by February, she went to her doctor to get physiotherapy and a gynaecology referral because the hip pain wasn't getting any better.

Ms Mulley shared that she had to chase the gynaecology appointment "a couple of times". But her hip pain worsened to the point she needed to visit an emergency GP to get pain relief.

She said: "It wasn't until December of 2023 that I got a really bad cough and the symptoms from that really floored me, more than I'd ever been impacted by a cough before."

"Normally, you can get on with your life, but I was feeling really fatigued. I couldn't stand up for a long period of time at work and if I was going to someone else's desk, I would have to sit down. And I just thought, 'this isn't normal'."

After an X-ray revealed a "little shadow", she was told to come back for a CT scan, which at that point she "started to think that this could be something like cancer".

A few days later, Ms Mulley received a phone call in which she was told to go to The Cancer Centre at Guy's Hospital in London for a PET scan, but was urged not to worry.

It was around this time that she said she was finally due to have her gynaecology hospital appointment, 10 months after first requesting it. However, she decided to continue with her ongoing medical investigations instead.

On December 23, Tamara said she got her stage 4 cancer diagnosis.

She said: "[The scans] showed that the cancer had already spread to my hip, my spine, my collarbone, multiple tumours in my lungs and quite a large tumour in my liver, among other places.

"When I saw [the scans], it lit up like a Christmas tree. It was just kind of everywhere."

Doctors were not sure where her cancer originated from and, therefore, were unable to come up with a treatment plan until she had a lung biopsy on December 27, and then got results in the third week of January 2024. She described the wait as the "hardest time" of the whole cancer journey, as she felt "anxious" that it would grow or worsen.

It was during the January appointment that she found out she had cholangiocarcinoma, which originated from her bile duct and was "incurable". She claims she was told, "You'll be lucky if you're sitting here in two years".

Fortunately, Ms Mulley, who works at Heathrow Airport, responded well to chemotherapy, which was extended from eight to 15 rounds. According to doctors, the treatment bought her an extra six months.

The chemo stopped working for her, but she was able to enrol in a clinical trial called First-308, which has "actually started to shrink" some of her tumour.

Now, outliving her prognosis, she said: "Passing that two-year mark was a real moment for me and one that I'm really proud of achieving.

"It goes to show that, although there's still a huge amount of work to be done with cholangiocarcinoma - because it's under researched and underfunded - there is hope."

The 29-year-old added that "ultimate hope is for a cure to be found", and despite the "unluckiness" she is "the luckiest person in the world".

Tamara is supported by AMMF, the UK's only registered charity dedicated to raising funds for research into cholangiocarcinoma.

She attended the charity's annual conference in 2025, where she shared her diagnosis and treatment story. She will also be travelling to the House of Commons with AMMF to meet MPs and NHS leaders at a Rethink Liver Cancer meeting on February 25.

According to data published by NHS England's National Disease Registration Service, two-thirds of patients with cholangiocarcinoma in England do not receive any cancer treatment.

Ms Mulley said: "I'm really passionate that anyone who gets diagnosed with this in the future is not essentially handed a death sentence, and that they are given an opportunity to access the right treatment at the right time, to give them the best possible outlook."