'We're proof not to skip a smear test'

Two women talk about their experience of being diagnosed with cervical cancer and warn others never to miss cervical screening tests

With my three-year-old daughter to look after and my job as a senior member of staff in a secondary school, life in 2018 was busy. That’s my only excuse for missing my smear tests, although I can’t tell you how much I regret that now.

At first, I thought I was experiencing early menopause when I started bleeding after intimacy and in between periods. I also wondered if it was related to the fact I’d relatively recently become a mum. Then, when I started feeling pain in my pelvis and at the top of my thighs, I thought that was because I was going to the gym and trying to look after myself.