Samantha Walsh, #AtYourCervix!

Hello guys, I’m clocking in and reporting for duty. The mission? To Save Your Cervix! Think of me as your friendly Customer Cervix Advisor.

Do you have a cervix, or know someone who does?

Then in that case this petition is for you! I’m campaigning to get the wording of the smear test invitation letter amended to actively encourage women to attend screening, including re-adding the phone number to call to book your appointment, which has actually been removed from the letter as of last year! I know, crazy right?

At a time when around 30% of women don’t attend screening these cost-cutting changes to the letter feel irresponsible at best. If you agree, please sign my petition by clicking the link below:

 PLEASE CLICK HERE TO SIGN!

Thank you, Birds Eye Viewers! Xxx

EXCITING UPDATE 31/1/17:

Just a few days after starting this petition, I got a tweet from Jo’s Trust which reassured me that all my months of campaigning had not been in vain! The letter changes (which I initially drew the attention of the charities Jo’s Trust and The Eve Appeal to) had been debated in parliament, leading to an agreement that the cervical screening invitation letter did indeed need to be reviewed and updated. They will be working on amending the wording to encourage attendance. Wahoo! I’m totally made up about this! (there may even have been tears).
I feel like the renegade master: power to the people! High five ladies!

https://www.facebook.com/wanderingblonde/posts/375255879514808

Read the parliamentary transcript here

The post Cervical Cancer Prevention: Please Sign My Petition! I’m #AtYourCervix appeared first on Life: A Birds Eye View.

I’m no stranger to those NHS letters dropping onto my mat; over the years I’ve had more than my fair share of “invitations for cervical screening.” Not the most popular of invites, admittedly; I’d much rather it was a wedding invitation – or at least a birthday party. But cervical screening, or  the ‘smear test‘ as it’s otherwise known, is a necessary procedure. There’s not that much I take seriously in life; I’m a fun-loving kinda gal with a strong sense of humour, but I know that medical investigations are to be ignored at your peril – and I never have.Despite my diligence in attending these appointments I had stage 3 CIN and subsequent treatment around 16 years ago, when I was 24 years old. I went on to develop an infection which saw me later have a partial hysterectomy and 3 failed cycles of IVF. It’s taken time to accept that I will never be a mother. But do I regret attending the screening that diagnosed the pre-cancerous cells in the first place? Of course not. Had I not attended and simply carried on with my life in blissful ignorance, there’s a high likelihood I wouldn’t be here now. I had no symptoms, and the chances are that by the time I did, the cancer would have been fully established and may even have spread to the surrounding organs.I have a filing cabinet stuffed full of correspondence relating to my ongoing treatment: the six-monthly screens and colposcopies…gradually moving to annual check-ups and eventually three-yearly smears. Occasionally I’d have an abnormal result again and need closer monitoring, but I’ve never had to have more cells removed; since my loop cone biopsy, they’ve returned to normal by themselves. As you can imagine, 16 years’ worth of such treatment has resulted in quite a lot of paperwork.

So when my latest invitation arrived a few days ago I knew instantly what it was and tore it open eagerly (which may sound surprising, but no checks for three years has left me feeling anxious – like walking a tightrope between skyscrapers without a safety net).

Since I know the wording of these letters off by heart, I instantly saw the difference. My heart sank. Instead of being told clearly that my cervical screening test is due being (politely but encouragingly) asked to attend and given the telephone number to call, the new version of the letter takes an altogether more casual tone: Your choice. It’s upto you whether or not to have cervical screening.

Wait, what?! No encouragement, no advice? The new letter has also been made completely impersonal with no signatory, no date of last smear or due date (as there was on the bottom of my 2012 letter) – not even a mention of the telephone number you need to call to make your appointment…

 

Over the years I’ve been vocal in my support of the screening. In recent months I have written about my experience on my blog (which got over 6k hits in the first week), had the article published on the front page of Huffington Post UK, and campaigned via social media to encourage women to attend. My campaigning has been picked up by several cervical cancer and gynae charities and women’s health groups.

I recently attended an event organised by The Eve Appeal during Gynae Cancer Awareness Month. It’s common knowledge that attendance rates for screening are in decline, yet not once has anyone mentioned this change in the way women are invited for testing as a possible contributory factor. I had no idea the letter had changed until I received my own a few days ago.

I’m all for freedom of choice, but during my campaigning I’ve discovered that most women know very little about their own bodies, cervical cancer causes and symptoms – or even how important the screening really is. Even some of my own friends – intelligent 40-something mothers who have witnessed my own traumatic experiences first-hand – admitted to me that they were clueless until they read my article. It seems that women are not attending mainly due to fear, ignorance or embarrassment:

Amending the letter in this way to dilute the message and imply that it’s something that you can simply decide to ignore if you like, is at best irresponsible and at worst, negligent. We should be encouraging women to attend more, not less.

I intend to take this further. I need to find out why the wording has been changed at a time when diagnoses are up and attendance down. If the answer is not satisfactory, I will campaign to have the wording amended. The government may be willing to accept these women’s deaths, the hundreds of heartbroken families left in their wake…but I’m not.

And to the 3.7million women in the UK who haven’t attended their smear appointment in the last 5 years: do you really want to be next?

This article has also appeared in The Huffington Post UK.

Please SIGN MY PETITION to get the cervical screening letter amended and support my #AtYourCervix campaign…

The post Cancer Isn’t Soft, So Why Is This New Approach? appeared first on Life: A Birds Eye View.

My regular blog readers will know that women’s reproductive health and gynae cancers are matters close to my heart, having shared my cervical cancer experience and subsequent infertility with you here on my blog and also via the Huffington Post. So I was particularly proud and excited when the invitation to attend an event at The Detox Kitchen in association with The Eve Appeal pinged into my inbox recently. The Eve Appeal is a charity whose main aim is raising awareness and funding research in the five gynaecological cancers – ovarian, womb, cervical, vaginal and vulval.

Athena Lamnisos, CEO of The Eve Appeal charity, had read my article via Twitter and subsequent tweets around raising awareness, and so invited me along to the event. Of course I immediately accepted and attended last night, accompanied by one of my besties, Kez Wells.

The evening was fantastic from start to finish: we were warmly welcomed with a glass of bubbly and some delicious healthy canapes, before mingling with fellow supporters of the charity and actress/comediennes Jane Horrocks and Helen Lederer.

Athena kicked off with a passionate speech about the vital work of the charity, highlighting the fact that 21000 women are diagnosed with gynae cancer in the UK each year, with 21 dying daily, before handing the floor over to Cherry Healey. 

Cherry, TV presenter and author of Letters to my Fanny, gave a lively talk about the importance of knowing the various parts of our own anatomy as women, and the cringe-factor that we still feel when discussing what goes on “down below.” Despite having had a child and being in her mid-thirties, she still experienced embarrassment when talking to her doctor. This gave her the impetus to confront the stigma and write the book – one which I’ve now added to my ever-increasing reading list.

Next up was Caroline Presho, whose life has been greatly affected by cancer, (despite never having had it herself), due to her family history and being a carrier of the BRCA mutation, giving her and her sister an 87% chance of contracting the disease themselves. She told her moving story – culminating in a preventative double mastectomy and partial hysterectomy – with humour and grace. Fortunately she was able to have 4 children prior to the surgery, but spoke of her obvious concerns for her own 2 daughters; full credit to her for sharing her story and campaigning to educate and protect others. Find further information and support over at The BRCA Umbrella.

There was just time to have a gorgeous manicure (I opted for brick red polish complete with tiny heart-shaped diamantes) by mobile beauty specialists Perfect 10 using Essie products before the raffle was drawn…which I won!

I was presented with a gift voucher for a pampering home visit by Perfect 10. I can’t wait to get it booked into my diary – I’m off to Ibiza at the weekend so am eagerly eyeing up the full-body massage, which will be very gratefully received after an exhausting weekend’s clubbing.

There was just time for a informative chat with a few of the Eve Appeal’s staff about the essential work they do before it was time for us to head out into the autumn evening, carrying our ‘Stop Ovary Acting’ tote bags filled with period-related supplies and a host of goodies courtesy of Pinkparcel.

  

A huge thank you to all at The Detox Kitchen and The Eve Appeal for an inspiring and memorable evening, full of invaluable information which I will definitely be using in the future in my ongoing mission to help other women avoid gynae cancers.

You can support the valuable work of The Eve Appeal by donating here 

Sam x


Fancy reading my back-story before you go any further? You can find my other blogs at:

www.costaricachica1.blogspot.com
www.samgoessolo.blogspot.com
www.mummymission.blogspot.com
www.worldwidewalsh.blogspot.com

Follow me:

Twitter: @SamanthaWalsh76 (Life:ABird’sEyeView)
Facebook: @lifeabirdseyeview
Instagram: @lifeabirdseyeview

The post An Evening with The Eve Appeal appeared first on Life: A Birds Eye View.

Liam and I had met late in the summer of ’98, when I was living in Ibiza and he was on a lads’ holiday. We went on our first “date” to Amnesia, danced all night and the rest is history; when he went home at the end of his holiday we kept in touch by phone and post (yes, actual letters!) and were reunited the moment I arrived back in the UK that October. He was from Essex, I’m from Kent, and after a year or so of dating we began renting a little place together in Brentwood and were blissfully happy. The only reason I’d had the smear test that had set off this rollercoaster chain of events was because we’d registered with a new GP after moving home; the accompanying nurse appointment was standard procedure.

In those days, cervical cancer screening was offered to women from the age of 20 every five years. I’d previously had one smear test at 21, which had come back fine, and wasn’t due another until I was 26. So it was by pure chance a few years later that I’d had the extra test that had detected these aggressively mutating cells.

The result letter had dropped on the mat: “abnormal.”

I’d had a further investigation at hospital via a colposcope (basically a telescope for ladybits) whereby they put iodine on the cells of the cervix, explaining that the bigger the area that changed colour (from black to yellow) with the iodine, the worse it was. The gynaecologist and I peered at the screen as the entire area instantly lit up like a Christmas tree. Oh.

Hence that dreaded follow-up appointment with the GP and then the operation to remove the cells using a hot wire. Had I not moved surgeries and just waited to be called for my next smear, two more years would have passed and they said I’d almost certainly have had full-blown cervical cancer due to the rapid rate of mutation – yet I’d had no symptoms.

Time passed, I was closely monitored with extra smears: every six months at first, then yearly. All clear. Liam and I bought a house, got married, and turned our attention towards starting a family, safe in the knowledge that there would be no repercussions from my earlier treatment. Wrong!

When months turned into years and no double blue lines appeared on the pregnancy stick, more tests revealed that, having had a sizable chunk of my cervix removed, the area was more prone to infection and my fallopian tubes had subsequently been completely damaged by an undiagnosed infection. I wasn’t prescribed antibiotics after the treatment as a precaution; I had no symptoms of infection, just as I’d had no symptoms of pre-cancer. I was left infertile.

I had to have a partial hysterectomy during which both fallopian tubes were removed (salpingectomy) and parts of my ovaries (oopherectomy). Attempting pregnancy with damaged tubes can result in potentially fatal ectopic pregnancy. We both took a sabbatical from our jobs and backpacked around the world for 6 months, before throwing ourselves headlong into the IVF process.

The subsequent years of treatment proved fruitless whilst everyone around me effortlessly popped out sprogs at an impressive rate. It was like a baby-making conveyor belt; it made my head spin. My marriage broke down under the strain after fifteen years together and at 37 I was eventually diagnosed with premature menopause as a result of all the treatment and surgeries (approximately fifteen years earlier than is normal) and prescribed HRT, which was a godsend after suffering years of menopause symptoms, and essential when weighing up my age against the considerable health problems associated with not taking it. Even with the hormone replacement therapy, my life expectancy is reduced.

Why am I telling you all this? Who gives a rat’s ass about your medical history, I
hear you cry. Because I don’t want you, or your friend/sister/daughter to go through what I have.

There are 3 things I feel I have to share with you, and apologies if I’m stating the obvious here:

1. Use condoms to prevent cancer.

At school, we were told to use condoms to avoid pregnancy and STIs. We were NEVER told that unprotected sex causes cancer. Almost everyone will get the HPV virus, certain strains of which cause cervical and other cancers, at some point in their lives – that’s how common it is. Even condoms don’t guarantee protection, since HPV is also passed on simply through skin-to-skin contact, but they help. Teenage girls are routinely vaccinated against HPV these days, but the injection doesn’t provide complete protection, and obviously it’s still fairly recent. And what about those young women aged 19-24 who missed out on/declined the vaccine and are still too young for routine testing?

2. Go for your smears, my dears! 


These days, women aren’t called for their first smear test until they are 25 years old. For many that’s too late: a woman may have been sexually active for upto a decade by then, and even then abnormalities can be missed. It’s just a human looking at a slide, after all. If you have any concerns or symptoms and are under 25 OR if you’re not yet due your routine smear test the doctor will flat-out refuse to do it (I know, I pleaded to have one last year and was declined, despite my history), so pay to have it done privately if you have to, at around £80. At the very least get an HPV test from Superdrug online for less than £50, since almost 100% of cervical cancers are caused by the virus. The test arrives quickly in the post, is easy to perform, and the results are emailed to you just a few days later.
It still amazes me that about 40% of women don’t go for their smears. Attendance rates are in continuous decline, with women in the 25-49 age group least likely to attend, despite the fact that cervical cancer is the most common cancer in women under 35. Worryingly, it seems the “Jade Goody effect” is wearing off, as this recent article in The Telegraph highlights. Are you crazy, girls?!

3. Don’t ignore symptoms.

I didn’t have any, but cervical cancer symptoms include bleeding after sex and/or between periods and severe abdominal pain are the main ones and shouldn’t be dismissed.

I hope this post doesn’t make me sound all little-miss-preachy-pants, that’s not my intention at all. I find most things in life are improved with a generous dose of humour served up with a side order of silliness; I don’t really do serious if I can help it.

However, since my blog has taken off and gained readers I’ve felt a niggling obligation to use it as a platform to do some good now and then, rather than purely for my wistful memoirs and inane ramblings.

Since this has been one of the biggest game-changers of my life, I guess it’s an issue close to my heart. If it means that even one woman swerves the evil HPV, or goes for a smear test who may not otherwise have bothered, then it’s worth the embarrassment of sharing such personal details with you all.

I may have missed out on being a mother, but thanks to the screening I’m lucky enough to be alive to tell the tale.

And that, after all, is what counts  

me being…well…alive

Useful links:

https://www.bmihealthcare.co.uk/health-matters/womens-health/cervical-cancer-screening 
(for booking private smear tests)


https://onlinedoctor.superdrug.com/hpv-test.html  (to buy an online HPV test)


https://www.jostrust.org.uk  (cervical cancer info and support)


https://www.facebook.com/The-Dawn-Effect-Cervical-Cancer-Prevention-for-19-25-Year-Olds-1451038508491244/  

https://www.daisynetwork.org.uk/  (premature menopause support)

http://gateway-women.com/   (support for childless women)

www.eveappeal.org.uk (all 5 gynae cancers info and support)

This article has also appeared in The Huffington Post UK.

Sam x


Fancy reading my back-story before you go any further? You can find my other blogs at:

www.costaricachica1.blogspot.com
www.samgoessolo.blogspot.com
www.mummymission.blogspot.com
www.worldwidewalsh.blogspot.com

Follow me:

Twitter: @SamanthaWalsh76 (Life:ABird’sEyeView)
Facebook: @lifeabirdseyeview
Instagram: @lifeabirdseyeview

The post Go For Your Smears, My Dears! appeared first on Life: A Birds Eye View.