While a mother will never have the third child she had always envisioned, she hopes, through sharing her cancer story, it will highlight the urgency for everyone to never take their health and modern medicine for granted.
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Emma Davis, 35, of Ballarat in Victoria's Central Highlands, had experienced health complications before however, in 2019, after delaying a pap smear test for more than three years, she was dealt the most horrific news of her life, which was, she had cervical cancer.
"I was overdue for a pap smear and I just sort of had the feeling that it needed to happen," Ms Davis said.
Initially she was told by her gynecologist at the time there were no abnormalities but that was all to change when she received a phone call one Friday afternoon.
"I remember it was 4:30pm and I was at work and I was sitting in a meeting room and I got a phone call asking me whether I wanted to come in (to the doctor's office) or did I want them to tell me over the phone and I told them to just tell me and they said I had cancer cells and it was stage one," Ms Davis said.
From there, Ms Davis thought she might be fortunate enough to have a surgical procedure to remove just the cancerous cells surrounding her uterus and cervix.
However, she was later told by her gynecologist in June that was not possible and she had to have a hysterectomy to ensure all the cancer was eradicated.
In September 2019, Ms Davis had her uterus removed.
"It was quite a traumatic experience the whole thing and I was really trying to sort my health out to have another child and then your whole world just gets torn down because you get told you can't do that now," she said.
"I ended up calling an ambulance that night (of the procedure) and spending another week in a hospital with a couple of days in ICU (intensive care unit)."
While the ordeal almost resulted in her death due to the internal bleeding she suffered after the procedure she said, despite it being a "bad year healthwise", she was optimistic people would learn from her experience.
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It is for this reason she decided for the first time to take part in the Shitbox Rally 2023 Summer, an event where people across the country travel from Rockhampton in Queensland, to Hobart, Tasmania, in cars worth less than $1500 to help raise funds for the Cancer Council.
"I just want to raise awareness that women in particular, I think we just keep soldiering on and put ourselves last and I just really want to highlight that you need to do your checks and make sure that your own health is in order because you never know when things like this can happen," Ms Davis said.
She said if she had attended her pap smear test at the scheduled date she may not have had to go through such a cancer battle.
"I was three years overdue for a pap smear and possibly, if I had been on schedule, then maybe things wouldn't have had to go the way they did," Ms Davis said.
Her message to everyone, regardless of gender, was to get these preventative health checks completed.
"Men and women need to get on top of their health because getting onto things early can save so much heart ache in the future," she said.
To donate to her campaign click here.
Malvika Hemanth
Malvika has a strong interest in covering stories on welfare, cost of living pressures and the arts. She works on the unceded lands of the Wadawurrung people and pays her respect to elders past, present and emerging.
Malvika has a strong interest in covering stories on welfare, cost of living pressures and the arts. She works on the unceded lands of the Wadawurrung people and pays her respect to elders past, present and emerging.
