A LOCAL woman is helping to spearhead a national campaign to make life-saving screening tests for women available from a younger age.
Lyndsey Ibbotson, 31, of Cleethorpes, says she has cried every day and suffered from severe anxiety since she underwent surgery for cervical cancer in 2008, which dramatically reduced her chance to have children.
She has lost her confidence, finds meeting new people very stressful and cannot work because she is prone to panic attacks, since being unable to come to terms with the possibility she may never become a mother.
However, after reading about Samantha Hickling, 26, who was given just five months to live but told her story in order to convince other young girls to get smear tests, Lyndsey has come forward to highlight her own campaign.
Lyndsey, of Sandringham Road, is also pushing for colposcopys, more detailed screening tests, to be made available for girls under 25 – the age women are encouraged to have NHS-funded smear tests – who show symptoms, such as irregular periods or bleeding after sex.
She said: "There is an attitude that nothing can be done until you are 25, but if you think there is a problem, don't be embarrassed to be a nuisance and make a noise – no one knows your body better than you, not even a doctor.
"I always had an intuition that something might be wrong, but never went to the doctor. I will never know if having an earlier smear test would have helped.
"All I can say is, don't take that chance."
Help and support from the Mercedes Curnow Foundation has finally helped Lyndsey get her life back on track.
The foundation is named after Sandra Cousin's daughter, who died from cervical cancer in 2011, aged 23. It raises funds for private screening for young women and lobbies parliament to make it available on the NHS.
"Having Sandra on the end of the phone has been so important. I now go out and talk to people about the foundation – I would never have done that before," she said.
On The Web: See www.thisisgrimsby.co.uk on Sunday for Lyndsey's full story and more on the Mercedes Curnow Foundation.
