I was 38 weeks pregnant in August of 2017 and due for my baby to be induced when things took an unexpected turn. There was something on my cervix.

“What was your last smear test like?” the doctor asked. I replied that my cervical screening test had been just fine, so she said it was likely just a polyp. Four months later at a colposcopy appointment, I was told that I had cervical cancer. 

In January 2018, at just 29 years old, I went through a radical hysterectomy which included the removal of my cervix, womb, fallopian tubes and 28 lymph nodes from my groin and thighs. Thankfully the cancer had not spread to my lymph nodes and I was told that the surgery was enough, that I was cancer free. 

Recovery from the hysterectomy was slow for me, and to tell the truth, the pain never really went away. Two months after my surgery I was so concerned I contacted the specialist gynaecological cancer nurse who got me another colposcopy appointment. From that appointment I was sent for an MRI which showed another cancerous tumour had grown in my pelvis. Because of this I had a PET scan, and that showed the cancer had spread to my stomach.  

The pain I was in increased dramatically and on one occasion I ended up in A&E, only to discover the tumour in my pelvis was so large it had crushed my right hand ureter (the tube from kidney to bladder) and I needed a stent put in to relieve pressure on my kidney.   

Then came my first meeting with my oncologist, who told me that she expected me to live for five years, maybe. She told me that there was chemotherapy and radiotherapy available, but it was all palliative. Palliative. A word you just don’t expect to hear before you turn 30.  

I began chemotherapy in early July, and after my first round we had to stop because the tumour had formed a fistula between my rectum and vagina. I needed a stoma to fix the issue, and I will have that stoma for the rest of my life. Because of the surgery, I couldn’t re-start chemo until September 2018, and after that it ran in cycles of every three weeks. The cycles got harder progressively, and I had an immune response to the second to last cycle. Because of that, and the amount of pain medication I required, I was found a bed in a hospice where I stayed for three weeks. They saw me through my final round of chemotherapy. 

Fortunately, my midpoint scan had shown my tumours were reacting to chemotherapy, and my endpoint scan showed something we were told never to expect or dream of: No evidence of disease The tumours were gone.  I went on to have the radiotherapy anyway, because we wanted to be sure we killed every tiny little cancer cell that may have survived the chemotherapy. I have broken free of my five year “sentence” and am still in remission.  

If I could offer a word of advice, it would be to make sure you attend your cervical screening tests, and get the HPV vaccine if you can, if not make sure your kids get it.  Because with that vaccine and cervical screening, we could eradicate cervical cancer, just imagine that.