Thank you to Annette Rooney, another amazing woman & mother; for sharing her story to raise awareness. This is it: I am 51 years old and was diagnosed with cervical cancer at the age of 30 just six months after having a clear smear test. I was stage 1b at diagnosis . I was very lucky that the tumour was growing down the cervix instead of up otherwise the spread could have gotten much worse although at this stage the nymph nodes were already infected and was immediately given a radical hysterectomy and radiotherapy. 10 years later I was given the all clear and have recovered. I have 2 daughters who i took to the Dr at the age of 18 for smear tests and they were refused ! They were told there was no hereditary reason why they should be given one even though I explained that my grandmother and myself both had cervical cancer. At the age of 25 my eldest daughter had a smear test ( her 1st one) it came back abnormal and she was told to come back in a years time to have repeated. Once again I told them my history and insisted she be referred to hospital for further investigation I refused to leave the Dr surgery until a referral was made and my daughter did in fact need treatment. If this had been left for another year the hospital said it would have been too late ! She has since had clear smears and has now had her first child. My youngest daughter had her 1st smear test in July and again it came back abnormal and has been referred to the hospital it is now December and she has still not been seen as the waiting list is at least 13 weeks and they said she should be seen in January 15 ! I do believe the cervical cancer is hereditary and I also believe that that the age has not been reduced for financial reasons ! The sooner someone starts to listen the sooner things will change. One young girl losing her life to cervical cancer is one too many. We still need 46,000 more signatures for our petition before the end of March. Please sign & share - epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/71455 Thanks x
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 20:46:25 +0000