From Well To Hell.

I've been offline for a few days due to ongoing technical problems, but today's post is one woman's womb cancer story and all I have to do is copy and paste, so here goes!

'I was bobbing along through life, minding my own business, when a few years ago I found myself turning fifty. It was only a number, it held no fear for me, no worries or concerns, I could do this. After all it was just another day, not so different from the one before or the one I was confident would follow.

I'd lived a clean life - non-smoker, teetotal, my only drug use being an occasional paracetamol tablet. Not meaning to sound vain, but I looked pretty good, I felt good and if I ever thought of death at all, it was only in the context that I wasn't looking to be facing it any time soon. My one concession to getting older was reading glasses - contact lenses weren't for me as I couldn't stand the thought of poking around with my eyes. I figured I'd got pretty good genes and I was grateful. As far as I was concerned all was well, but I went from well to hell in only a few months because I didn't know the lining of my womb - something I thought I was losing every month - could become cancerous.

I wasn't aware that starting my periods at an early age and not yet having reached the menopause were both putting me at risk of womb cancer, and nor did I realise that a negative smear test result didn't mean I was ok. I didn't know that breast cancer, ovarian cancer and cervical cancer weren't the only women's cancers I should look out for signs of. And the reason I didn't know any of these things was because there had never been a womb cancer awareness campaign in the UK. Not once.

I thought the initial minor changes to my periods were due to my age; I thought that the 'hot flushes' were due to hormone changes. I didn't realise I had a cancer that would mean losing my womb, cervix, ovaries and fallopian tubes. That would put me firmly in menopause before I was ready to accept it. That would lead me to question my femininity and what it means to be a woman. That would take months, even years, of my life to recover from. That would leave me with side-effects and an ongoing sense of uncertainty about the future. And I'm one of the lucky ones. 

Don't just be breast aware, and don't simply take a negative smear test result at face value, be womb aware too. And make sure your female friends and relatives are also all womb aware, because finding womb cancer early could save your life and/or theirs.'

If you have a womb cancer story you'd like to share then please let me know.

Love Rose x

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