I am lucky enough to have no family history of women's cancers, but always have, and now, post menopause, still go for regular pap tests. I've now had 2 mammograms, and don't find them too troublesome - uncomfortable, yes, but I don't mind.

My mother in law was diagnosed with cervical cancer in the early 1970s. She seemed ok after site treatment with a radium pack, and follow up radiotherapy. However, she reported some symptoms she had thought were just a side effect of the treatment (probably constipation, at a guess) and investigation showed that she actually had colon cancer. The cervical was a spread from it. The growth was inoperable as it had attached to her body wall, and when she died about 18 months later, the cervical cancer was back again, and was also noted on her death certificate. She didn't have regular smear tests, and I wonder that if something had been picked up earlier, the bowel tumour might have been found early enough to treat.

When she was first diagnosed with the cervical cancer she just said she couldn't understand why she could have something so wrong, and yet feel so well.

Andrea