Brave young mum-of-two, 24, feels 'let down by the system' following devastating diagnosis
21.09.2022 - 09:57
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
A brave young mother-of-two small children who has had extensive surgery faces an agonising wait to discover if she is cancer free following a devastating diagnosis.
Courtney Gibbons, 24, has had her womb, uterus, cervix, fallopian tubes, appendix and lymph nodes removed in a bid to rid herself of the disease and is now hoping to hear she has the all clear. She is also campaigning to reduce the age women begin to have their smears from 25 to 21, having been advised a cervical screening may have stopped the spread.
The mother, who has a four-year-old son, Kamiy and a five-year-old daughter, Ariah, was given the terrifying news on August 2 and says doctors at Royal Preston Hospital, where she was treated told her she was one of the youngest, if not the youngest patient to have had cervical cancer at the hospital.
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She says: "I am only 24 so didn’t qualify for a smear which is why I am so passionate about the age being reduced. As soon as you are sexually active you are at risk."
Courtney, from Leyland, says she began to worry last year when she started having irregular bleeding between her periods and so made an appointment with her doctor. When attending the surgery she says she was told by her GP not to worry and it was probably something of nothing.
She says she went back multiple times because she knew something wasn’t right, and says: "Every time I picked my son up, coughed or went to the toilet I would spot some blood." Courtney says she was given Norethisterone pills that stop bleeding but she wanted to know why she was bleeding in the first place.
Courtney says she was referred to a gynaecologist and then referred to