Lifting my three-year-old son, Kamiy, I winced as pain rippled through my stomach.

‘Mummy’s OK, sweetie,’ I reassured him, spotting his worried glance.

At 24, I was a single mum of two gorgeous kids, Kamiy and five-year-old Ariah.

I was working part-time and life was great, if a little hectic.

But over the past few weeks, I’d begun to develop some strange symptoms.

One day, I found a few spots of blood in my underwear after going to the gym.

At first, I assumed it was just my period, but the bleeding persisted.

Soon I’d be spotting every time I coughed, picked up my kids, or lifted something heavy.

And I was also suffering from an unfamiliar pain in my stomach.

I booked a doctor’s appointment as soon as possible.

‘We’ll test for chlamydia,’ they told me.

Though I said I thought it was unlikely, they ran the tests anyway.

As I predicted, they came back negative.

‘You’re still too young for a smear test,’ the doctor told me.

‘We do them at 25.’

They agreed to prescribe me some medication which helped delay bleeding.

But it had no effect.And the constant stomach pain was making it hard to keep up with my busy life.

Doctors told me they could refer me to a gynaecologist, but it was going to take 10 months.

Desperate for solutions, I tried a different approach.

My GP had told me there was a nearby private hospital that occasionally had space for NHS patients.

I rang up and begged them for any free appointments they might have.

‘We’ve actually had a cancellation,’ said the receptionist.

‘Come in next week.’

So, leaving the kids with my mum, I headed over to hospital.

The doctor asked me about my symptoms, ran a few tests, and took a scan of my cervix.

Her brow furrowed with concern.

‘I’ll see you again in a few weeks,’ she said as I was leaving.

‘You never know, it might just be nothing,’ I replied.

She turned to me with a serious expression.

‘I think we’ll be seeing you,’ she repeated.

But I was too busy to worry much about it.

A few days later, I took the kids out for a day in Manchester.

We went round the shops, before going to a Greek restaurant.

That was when I got a call from the hospital.

‘Can you come in for a follow-up?’ the receptionist asked.

So, a few days later, I attended the appointment, pushing Kamiy in a pram.

As I sat down, the doctor looked at me.

‘I’m sorry to tell you this, but you’ve got cervical cancer,’ she said.

For a few seconds, I couldn’t process her words.

‘But I’m too young,’ I gasped.

My first thought was of my children.

Would I still be there to see them grow up?

After that, my mind turned to all things practical, such as how I was supposed to arrange childcare for the time I’d be in hospital.

The doctor handed me some leaflets and spoke about next steps.

Luckily, Kamiy was too young to understand what was going on.

Afterwards, I went home in a daze.

My mum was devastated when I told her the news.

‘You’ve had the vaccine, though,’ she kept saying.

I had been vaccinated against HPV at school and it was a mystery why it hadn’t protected me.

Together, we discussed what I’d tell my kids.

We agreed they were both too young for the whole truth.

‘Mummy has a little man called Frank living in her belly,’ I explained, as they looked at me, wide-eyed.

‘He’s making me feel a bit poorly, so I need to have him taken out.’

Later that month, I had another scan and the news wasn’t good.

The cancer had spread to my fallopian tubes, appendix, and pelvic floor lymph nodes.

‘It must have been developing for years,’ the doctors told me.

But I didn’t have time to worry about that.

‘Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?’ asked my mum.

‘No thanks,’ I told her.

‘There’s no need.’

I knew that keeping busy and looking after the kids was holding me together.

Meanwhile, the doctors planned my surgery.

‘We would have preferred to take a less invasive approach,’ she told me.

‘But it’s spread so far, I’m afraid that’s no longer an option.’

They were keen to operate as soon as possible to stop the spread.

The surgery was scheduled for a month away.

Though I remained positive, I knew I had to prepare for the worst.

I wrote both my children letters, just in case the treatment didn’t work.

I’m so sorry for everything I’ll miss, I wrote.

Then, I got an unexpected call from the hospital.

‘We’ve had a cancellation and we’d love to get you in,’ said the receptionist.

‘Can you do tomorrow?’

It all happened incredibly fast.

Luckily, my family stepped in for childcare.

‘You’re the youngest person I’ve ever seen with this condition,’ the surgeon told me before the operation.

Over the four-hour procedure, they removed my uterus, cervix, fallopian tubes, appendix and lymph nodes.

When I woke up, there was no one by my bedside.

My family were all busy with work or looking after my kids.

Though I was groggy and sore, the medication dulled the pain.

I had to remain in hospital for a week, followed by bed rest for another six weeks.

Only time would tell if the operation had worked.

My best friend, Gemini, came to visit me in hospital.

‘It’s so hard seeing you like this,’ she said, struggling to hold back tears.

She kept me company all afternoon, and hospital staff didn’t kick her out when visiting hours were over.

A week later, I was allowed to go home.

My family came to collect me, and seeing my kids again was the best medicine.

‘Is Frank gone, Mum?’ asked Ariah, looking at my tummy.

‘Yes, he has,’ I told her.

My nan and grandad had to gently take the kids from me, so they didn’t squeeze too tight.

For the first few days, I was completely out of action.

My kids really stepped up to help me out with household tasks.

I was meant to be on bed rest for two months, but that was a tough rule to follow.

In just over a week, I was cleaning my house and cooking breakfast pancakes for the kids.

Though there were tears of pain in my eyes, I knew I had to keep going.

When the time came for the school run, I wrapped my stomach in clingfilm for protection.

What was usually a 20-minute walk was now an hour’s painful trudge.

But gradually, I began to improve.

Six weeks after my operation, I went back in for a check-up.

‘We’re really happy with how the scar is healing,’ the surgeon told me.

‘So, am I cancer-free now?’ I asked.

‘You’re currently in remission,’ he said.

‘It’s possible that it will come back, but that’s not something we can predict.’

It wasn’t the most reassuring response, but I refused to live in fear.

Over the next few months, I came to terms with my new body.

I had to learn to love my scar and accept that I could no longer carry children.

It really impacted my sense of femininity, and I didn’t want to rule out more kids one day.

Fortunately, the NHS offer some support with egg-freezing and surrogacy.

Now, it’s been almost a year since my operation.

I’ve started a campaign to lower the HPV screening age to 21.

If I’d been screened in my early 20s, they might have caught the cancer earlier.

So far, there’s no sign of it returning, and I’m doing my best not to think about it.

The experience has definitely changed me as a person.It’s been such a wake-up call.

Now I know there’s nothing we can truly take for granted.

ENDS