When Kirsty Robson received a letter from her doctor inviting her for a smear test, she threw it away. The mum-of-three had never had a cervical screening and, believing she was healthy, didn’t book an appointment.
But after visiting her doctor with stomach pain in September 2016, Kirsty was given the devastating news that she had cervical cancer. And, sadly, a year after her diagnosis, aged just 32, the single mum died, leaving her mum, Gwyn, 63, to care for her children, James, 12, Lauren, eight, and Dylan, five.
Gwyn, who lives in Newcastle with her husband, Bob, 63, and Kirsty’s three children, says, “I didn’t realise that Kirsty hadn’t attended her smear tests. She didn’t go because she thought it would never happen to her – but she’s proof…