Lauren’s Journey
“I just want to shout from the rooftops: book your smears, know the signs and symptoms of all 5 gynaecological cancers and most importantly advocate for yourself. Nobody, and I mean nobody, knows your body like you do!”
'Did you have regular smear tests?' - possibly the most asked question I've had since being diagnosed with stage 2 cervical cancer in Dec 2023.
I've ridden the highs and lows of cancer treatment for the past 10 months, the wait for results (it's excruciating), the highs of ticking off stages of the treatment, the love of everyone around me keeping me going as the treatment and recovery took hold. I'm so grateful to have reached a point where I can now say I am NED (No Evidence of Disease).
I did go for regular smears, religiously. I'm from the Jade Goody era and very weirdly when Jade passed away I had a really odd feeling that I would one day have cervical cancer. Because of this, I made sure I always booked in my smears, once I even had one cancelled as I was 6 months too early.
Lauren with her brother the day she rang the bell to signal the end of her treatment.
I discovered that I had cervical cancer as I had abnormal bleeding, between my periods and after sex. To start with I put this down to hormonal changes, being late 30's I thought maybe it was perimenopause related, possibly the stress of a busy life and 2 little ones, any excuse really. A few weeks in, something was niggling at me and telling me to follow my gut and get it checked. I'm so pleased that I did. The wait at my surgery to see the doctor was 5 weeks, it was the longest 5 weeks of my life as the bleeding started to play on my mind more and more. I could have told you then that I had cancer. Unfortunately, I had a few challenges with referral wait times in these early stages, especially for a scan and colposcopy so I made the decision to be seen privately. The biggest lesson I have learnt from this is to really advocate for yourself. I was so worried about wasting the doctor's time. It's never a waste of time, it is far far better to investigate something than to risk letting a problem grow. If you don't feel the answer or testing you have been given is right, keep going until you are happy all avenues have been explored.
A few weeks after my colposcopy, I got an email at 11.30pm from my consultant letting me know that the results of the punch biopsies were back and he wondered if I was free to meet the following day. I knew from that second that I was right and I did indeed have cancer. What followed was a few weeks of scans, results and planning, nothing prepares you for the mixed feelings of these first few weeks. Time can't move quick enough as you wait for results yet everything is happening so fast your mind doesn't have the time it needs to process what's happening. If you find yourself in this situation, be kind to yourself and take any help offered to you. There are some incredible charities and resources available for support.
Lauren and her family on holiday in Greece while awaiting her biopsy results. They had no idea what was going to happen 5 days later when she’d be diagnosed.
I went on to have surgery, a radical hysterectomy, followed by chemoradiation and brachytherapy. I had hoped surgery would be all I would need but it wasn't to be. I'm now 4 months post-treatment, I have been given the all-clear and I'm enjoying a lovely summer making memories with my family. When I look back on the past 10 months I never thought I'd get to this stage, now that I have I look at everything differently. Life is so precious. If you are going through treatment or in the early stage of diagnosis, know you are never alone, you are stronger than you realise and you too will look back on this one day with a newfound strength.