Discovery too late for cervical cancer survivor

Andrea Winmill's first thought when she heard of a breakthrough cervical cancer vaccine, was "bugger".

"I think it's great, but they could have come up with it a few years ago," she laughs.

It's a fairly upbeat response from a woman who, at just 27, was told she had cervical cancer, needed a hysterectomy and would never have children.

Andrea was one of the women whose smear tests were misread by former Gisborne pathologist Michael Bottrill in the 1990s.

She counts herself as one of the lucky ones. She survived, and she and her husband John now live happily on their Te Puke dairy farm with their two adopted children, daughter Shaya, 3, and son Cullen, 5. Sometimes she wonders what her own children would look like.

She still doesn't like the feel of the 16-staple scar stretching from her pubic line to her belly button.

At the time she has felt a little bitterness at what had happened - after all, she'd worked hard, paid taxes and had regular smears.

"It was hard. I was upset and I cried, but that was the reality. I had to face it. I've never been a melodramatic person; I've never been all woe-is-me. We have got a positive from the negative."

But Andrea is uncertain about the practicalities of the anti-HPV vaccine, and was shocked when she learned the vaccine might need to be given to pre-pubescent children to be effective.

"This is the grim reality. But I didn't realise it needed to be given so young. To me an 11-year-old is still a child. I'm not sure about pumping something like that into them. Eleven is just barbaric."

She knows it's a response that could seem surprising given her experiences with cervical cancer. "Look at it this way: I don't think I'm any worse off. I don't feel hard done by. I'm one of the lucky ones."

- HERALD ON SUNDAY