Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
Hard road to a
During Cervical Screening Awareness Week, charity Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust highlighted the importance of cervical smear tests, Beating cervical cancer was only half the battle for Vikki
which can halt cancer before it starts. It was a routine cervical smear test that resulted in a shock diagnosis of cervical
When young mum Vikki Ridler was informed at the age of 28 that she’d need to undergo a hysterectomy to free her of the cancer growing on her cervix, she began planning her funeral in her head.
After four years on her own with two young children, Vikki was relishing the excitement of a new relationship, she was climbing the career ladder, and life was good. Then, the day before her 28th birthday, came the shock diagnosis that would in time annihilate her world and trigger a set of circumstances that would rob her of her mental health – and her love of living.
Cell changes detected by a cervical smear test were attributed to the fact that she had recently given birth to her second child.
Having experienced slight bleeding mid-cycle, she made an appointment with her GP eight months after an earlier screening, during which another smear test was carried out.
Then came a letter that pre-cancerous cells had been detected, and Vikki was called for cold coagulation – a procedure that uses a heated probe to destroy abnormal cells on the cervix (neck of the womb).
“The doctor said he was going to take a couple of biopsies,” she said.
“I went home after the treatment and thought nothing more of it. I thought that was it done.”
Two weeks later, estate agent Vikki was at work when an 0800 number rang her mobile.
“It was my consultant’s secretary,” she explained.
“She was very matter-of-fact. She told me an appointment had been made for the next day. Then, she said: ‘You need to make sure you bring someone with you.’ That started a whole episode of panic. I refused to get off the phone until somebody spoke to me. Eventually, I got through to someone called Fran, who later became very important.”
Vikki and her mum attended University Hospital Wishaw the next day and, after a two-hour wait, Fran introduced herself and led them through to the consultant.
It was explained that the biopsy had thrown up traces of cervical cancer. The stage it was at had yet to be determined, and there was a need to discuss what happened next. Feeling completely numb, Vikki quietly asked Fran for water and tissues for her mum, who had fallen apart beside her.
Although cervical cancer is one of the slowest growing and most treatable when detected early, Vikki’s cancerous cells had developed in only eight months since her previous smear, and a hysterectomy – the surgical removal of the uterus – was considered the only option.
“I felt like it was an operation for an old lady,” said Vikki, whose children, Freyah and Ashton, were aged only eight and six.
“I had to go home and think about things. I planned my funeral in my head. Jo’s [Cervical Cancer Trust] was where I turned to. When you go looking for answers, Jo’s is the information go-to for people. But what I found there seemed to be a lot about older women, women saying they did not feel like a woman after their hysterectomy, that they felt empty and gained so much weight. It really worried me.”
Vikki was referred to Glasgow Royal Infirmary for the surgery, which would leave her ovaries in tact to ensure she did not go through menopause.
There, she was introduced to gynaecologist surgeon Dr Smruta (Ruth) Shanbhag – a colourful character who breezed in, wearing a bright green tracksuit.
“She was so positive about absolutely everything,” said Vikki, who also met patient co-ordinator Margaret, Fran’s counterpart at the Royal. cancer for young Lanarkshire woman Vikki Ridler.
Here, she explains how she came out the other side
“It never felt like doom and gloom. I thought: ‘This woman is going to look after me.’”
As if to endorse the trust and confidence Vikki had placed in her surgeon, Dr Shanbhag greeted her on the morning of her operation by revealing that under her scrubs, she was wearing her secret weapon – her lucky, Superwoman T-shirt.
Vikki was in theatre for seven hours, during which laparoscopic, or keyhole surgery, was carried out to remove her womb.
“I woke up in slight pain, – and why she’s now a Jo’s campaigner for greater awareness and more support for other young women like her. very out of it,” said Vikki, whose absence was explained to her children as a hospital stay for an operation to fix a sore tummy.
“When I was wheeled through, I felt a sudden wave of relief. It was done.”
On seeing the five sticking plasters across her stomach and belly button that covered the tiny incisions left by the major surgical procedure, Vikki was elated. She was discharged from hospital after three days – but her recovery was to be tough.
“I tried to be the exception to the rule,” she said.
“Looking back, I wish I had given myself more time to recover. I was struggling to sleep and was in a lot of pain. I returned to work after five weeks to a promoted role – something more demanding. I gained two-and-a-half stones in weight. My hormones were everywhere.
“I started to turn to alcohol as a medicine. I was just so lost, numb. If I could change anything, it would be to give myself more credit for what I was going through and allow myself to accept it – because that led to different problems.”
Vikki’s partner stepped up with practical help, taking time off work, and adopting responsibility for cooking, household chores and looking after the five children they had between them.
But when she reached out to him for emotional and psychological support, he failed to understand.
In a reaction she describes as “in slow motion,” she posted on Jo’s that she’d just had a hysterectomy, and lied about
how great she felt.
“As the physical side of me started to get better, it was the mental side of me that suffered,” explained Vikki.
“I was trying to escape the constant radio noises in my head. I was experiencing the crazy three days you have before you get your period. I thought I was going through the menopause. It was, for me, a rational, practical explanation. But the blood tests came back to say it wasn’t.”
Vikki’s mental anguish was exacerbated by the tragic death of a childhood friend in a road accident, and losing her maternal grandad to bowel cancer.
“My behaviour was becoming more reckless. I wanted to crash my car. My relationship was not good, but I was not strong enough to leave him, take my children with me and find somewhere else to live,” she continued.
“I experienced panic attacks. You wanted to hurt yourself, because you want to get this noise, this pain, out of your head.”
In desperation, Vikki dialled 999. Confiding in the operator that she wanted to harm herself and no longer wanted to be here, Vikki – fearing that the neighbours might see – refused an ambulance and made her own way to hospital, where she spent two hours talking with a mental health nurse.
She also unburdened herself to Fran, who told her it was not uncommon for women who receive a cancer diagnosis to have a mental breakdown, post traumatic stress disorder.
She was prescribed medication and had hypnotherapy sessions to calm her anxiety.
But the breakthrough came when she told straight-talking Glasgow counsellor Terry Mcewan that she was completely broken – a bad person who didn’t want to live.
“Every single thing he said to me made sense. He didn’t influence my decisions, but opened my eyes to what was going on,” she said.
“He made me realise my relationship was horrendous. He made me realise there was more. The other outcome with Terry was having to go back to the beginning with my diagnosis and relive how that felt.”
Buoyed by her new, restored inner strength, Vikki decided the time was right to tell her children, now aged 10 and eight, about her cancer and how she’d battled the
demons left in its wake.
“With my grandad being the first person they had lost, I never wanted cancer to be defined as death for them,” she explained.
“I explained mine was found early enough and it was not something they should worry about. There will be somebody in their lives again with it, and I did not want them to automatically assume the worst.”
Having regained her mental and physical strength, and with the resolve to make a new start with her children and their beloved dachshund, Frank, Vikki made contact with charity Jo’s, to appeal to them to do more for younger women.
Receptive to her advice, Jo’s asked Vikki to become an ambassador for the charity. She now reaches out to younger women like her through print, broadcast and online media, stressing during those interviews the importance of regular smears.
She’s also on hand should Fran or Margaret need her to talk through the fears and anxieties of recently-diagnosed younger women in their care.
Vikki thanks her lucky stars that she chose to have her children at a young age. With a boy and a girl, she felt after Ashton’s birth that her family was complete.
“I was 20 when I had my first child. I love being a mum and I am so glad that happened. I’m lucky,” said 31-year-old Vikki, who is excelling in her job as one of Scotland’s few female valuers and is proud to have just bought a new family home in Blackwood.
“My children are walking, talking versions of me in every sense. We are quite open about everything we are feeling – me to them, and them to me, and our house is full of fun.
“I have already told my daughter about the HPV injection and how it can prevent cases of cervical cancer. Boys are getting it as well, now. I know when the time comes, they will both be there with their arms out, ready to go.
“It has been a roller-coaster, but it has made me such a better person. I am very relaxed and happy. I have a new appreciation, now – for everything in life.”
■ Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust was the concept of London businessman, James Maxwell, in memory of his wife, Jo, who died in 1999 from cervical cancer at the age of 40. For more information, visit Jostrust.org.uk
As the physical side of me started to getbetter,it was the mentalside of me that suffered