A brave young mother-of-two small children who has had extensive surgery faces an agonising wait to discover if she is cancer free following a devastating diagnosis.
Courtney Gibbons, 24, has had her womb, uterus, cervix, fallopian tubes, appendix and lymph nodes removed in a bid to rid herself of the disease and is now hoping to hear she has the all clear. She is also campaigning to reduce the age women begin to have their smears from 25 to 21, having been advised a cervical screening may have stopped the spread.
The mother, who has a four-year-old son, Kamiy and a five-year-old daughter, Ariah, was given the terrifying news on August 2 and says doctors at Royal Preston Hospital, where she was treated told her she was one of the youngest, if not the youngest patient to have had cervical cancer at the hospital.
Read more:
She says: "I am only 24 so didn’t qualify for a smear which is why I am so passionate about the age being reduced. As soon as you are sexually active you are at risk."
Courtney, from Leyland, says she began to worry last year when she started having irregular bleeding between her periods and so made an appointment with her doctor. When attending the surgery she says she was told by her GP not to worry and it was probably something of nothing.
She says she went back multiple times because she knew something wasn’t right, and says: "Every time I picked my son up, coughed or went to the toilet I would spot some blood." Courtney says she was given Norethisterone pills that stop bleeding but she wanted to know why she was bleeding in the first place.
Courtney says she was referred to a gynaecologist and then referred to colposcopy where it was discovered she had CIN stage 3 - meaning she had severely abnormal cells on the cervix, which after a biopsy was identified as cervical cancer.
She says: "I went with my son to get the results as I just wasn't expecting to be told it was cancer. But they said: "I am sorry to tell you but you have cervical cancer." I was numb. I then went for a PET scan which showed me that the cancer had spread to my fallopian tubes, appendix and pelvic lymph nodes."
But Courtney, who works as an activity coordinator at Lostock Grove Rest Home in Leyland, says she refused to get upset as she "needed to be strong" for her children. She said: "I knew I was powerless to do anything but turn up for my appointments. There was no point in getting upset - it wouldn't change anything."
After extensive open abdominal surgery on September 5, brave Courtney who says surgeons were shocked at her pragmatic, no nonsense approach to what she was going through, is now awaiting results in the next two to four weeks to find out whether she is cancer free. If not, then she says she will have to start radio or chemo therapy.
Refusing to let it hold her back, Courtney says since being discharged from hospital on the 10th, she is back doing the school run, hoovering and getting on with the housework. And she says she will be writing to her local MP to discuss a petition to lower the age women have smears from 25 to 21.
She added: "I want to raise awareness that no matter how old you are, if you know something is not right then you know your body better than anyone else. And to tell women if you are spotting make sure you go and get checked. Don’t settle, stand your ground and tell them you need to be seen. The sad thing is I was told by a cancer specialist that if I had qualified for a cervical screening the cancer may not have spread. I feel let down by the system."
Courtney also says life has never felt so precious. She says: "You have to live life while you can, because you never know which second is going to be your last. Life feels so precious. It's made me realise you have to live for each day."
A spokesperson for the NHS said: “The NHS cervical screening programme remains an important way of protecting people developing cervical cancer, and we encourage those eligible to come forward when invited.
“In 2012, the UK National Screening Committee reviewed the age which cervical screening is first offered and concluded that the evidence did not support reducing the age of screening to women under the age of 25. As such, there are currently no plans to reduce the age for the cervical screening programme in England.”
READ NEXT:
- Greater Manchester road dubbed 'worst in UK' in viral TikTok rant
- Devastation as dad-of-three, 30, is left paralysed after "cruel" accident at work
- Shameless fly-tipper caught on camera dumping van load of rubbish outside house
- Gemma Atkinson told she 'hasn't changed' as she dives back into the Hollyoaks archives with throwback snaps
- Woman denies making up rape allegation against Benjamin Mendy's alleged 'fixer' because she was 'embarrassed', court heard
