South Yorkshire cancer survivor urges women not to miss Smear test
A young woman from South Yorkshire who had cervical cancer is urging others to be screened for it.
A young woman from South Yorkshire who had cervical cancer is urging others to be screened for it.
Becca Towler-Bolland was diagnosed with it in 2012 when she was just 24.
That would be too young to have a smear test but she says even if she'd had a letter about it she probably wouldn't have made an appointment.
She said:
"My mum always told me I probably wouldn't have gone, and that I could have been travelling, and then what would have happened?
"You could have been waiting on this and never gone until I was 28 or 29 and that would have been too late then.
"It's just really important, as soon as you get that letter, make that appointment
"A lot of girls I know, friends and collegues, as soon as they got the letter, decided to go.
"It's not nice but it's worth it."
Women in their twenties are least likely to have a smear test - with only a third having one according to Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust.
The charity's warning that the number of women taking up screenings is continuing to fall.
Almost 4 million women are failing to attend the preventative examination.
Cases of cervical cancer, which led to the death of reality tv star Jade Goody in 2009, are at their highest since 1999.
Becca is now in remission after having treatment at Weston Park Hospital in Sheffield.
Her husband Tom is backing Becca's calls for more women to be screened and is fundraising for the hospital's charity.