A mum's life stopped when she listened to a voicemail.
Amy Turner, 47, kept ignoring invitations for cervical screenings, letting her busy, "keep calm and carry on" mentality dismiss irregular bleeding.
Initially, Amy blamed the bleeding on a "a menopause thing" and the gym for her pelvic pain. But one day in 2018, the teacher from St Helens got a "gut feeling" that knocked her life off course.
READ MORE: Teacher's 'life stopped' when she heard voicemail
She visited a GUM clinic, leading to a biopsy after a smear test detected irregular cells.
She knew something was wrong when she listened to a voicemail telling her to call the doctor only two days later before being diagnosed with cervical cancer.
The teacher, who runs her own language school, Lingo, said: "It sounds like a cliche, but it is literally like life stopped. It felt like I was watching somebody in a soap opera.
"It was very difficult to stay focused. I had a three-year-old daughter to be normal for. I shielded that from family and friends until I got the actual diagnosis that May at St Helens Hospital.
"That was a very surreal, horrible feeling."
Doctors were going to treat Amy with a radical hysterectomy surgery to remove the uterus and parts of the cervix that could be affected by the cervical cancer, but they opted for a different course when they saw how far the cancer spread.
She got daily radiotherapy for 25 days, with chemotherapy on Thursdays.
The chemo made Amy so sick she had to stop, only for it to be followed by a "dreadful" internal radiotherapy called brachytherapy, which shrunk the cancer.
Amy said: "If anybody is scared of going for a smear test, believe me, the smear test is nothing compared to that."
Despite the horrors of treatment, the process actually brought Amy closer with her parents.
She told the ECHO: "Obviously, my mum was disappointed that I had missed my checks and my screenings, but they were amazing the whole way through.
"They drove me to Clatterbridge every single day because I had to go for 25 days straight for radiotherapy. They were just wonderful.
"We passed so many milestones together during that time. My mom was 70, it was my daughter's birthday and their wedding anniversary. We made it work."
But the journey to recovery battered Amy, but without the physical scars of some cancers.
She said: "I don't have parts of me missing as such, but nothing is the same. I'm not the same.
"You've had a brush with mortality at the end of the day, and your mindset completely changes, so that was really, really quite tricky.
"Then, because of the treatments I had, I was thrown into full menopause. Even though I was in my 40s, I wasn't expecting to deal with that, and so intensely as well because it was forced.
"All of this has a real, profound effect on your mental health."
Her daughter kept her going throughout it all, even as Amy lay on the couch throwing a ball to her daughter outside.
Amy said: "She was a big inspiration. She hadn't even started school yet, so she needed me. I wasn't going to let this beat me."
With the help of The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre, and the supportive community in forums run by Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust, Amy is over three years in remission.
Determined to never let anything scare her again, Amy started some fun stunts to raise money for the "magical" Clatterbridge Cancer Centre, including a tandem skydive from 15,000 feet for £2,000.
She spoke out about her own experience amid the launch of a new, national cervical screening campaign, announced as data reveals one in three people don't take up the offer of cervical screening.
Amy said: "I just don't want people to be as worried, as silly, as naive as I was. I swerved my checks, not because I was embarrassed or scared - I was busy and I put it off in the same way you might put your dental appointments off.
"I thought that's something I'll do next time, next week, and I did everything but that."
Samantha Dixon, chief executive of Jo's Trust, the UK's leading cervical cancer charity, said: "It's worrying to see how much cervical screening attendance fell over the last year.
"There are many factors that can make booking a test hard, not just embarrassment but complex things such as physical disability and past trauma. Sadly, covid added even more challenges.
"This campaign is coming at a much needed time and will hopefully be a reminder to many to book in an overdue test, as well as highlighting the support available for those who find it harder to attend.
"Our Helpline is a great place to turn to if you have questions about the test, call us on 0808 802 8000."
