Mom, 45, Was ‘Begging’ Doctors for MRI Before Cervical Cancer Diagnosis: ‘I Wasn’t Being Believed’

A woman has “lost her faith in doctors” after she spent years “begging” for answers about her health.

Jessica Mason — a 45-year-old mother of two from Wales — was experiencing intense pain and vaginal bleeding when she decided to visit a doctor in March 2019. An ultrasound didn’t pick anything up and she was ultimately sent home. After additional doctors visits, she was misdiagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), a prolapse and endometriosis and was advised to perform pelvic floor exercises.

“For years I was back and forth to GP appointments or hospital complaining of bleeding and pain,” she told Southwest News Service, via Wales Online. “While I knew my body and felt something was wrong, I felt like I had no choice but to put my faith in the doctors.” 

“However, it felt like nothing was really being done to get to the bottom of my symptoms and I often felt like I was being fobbed off,” she said.

When her symptoms persisted, Mason returned to the doctors in 2022. An ultrasound revealed a thickening of her uterus, but she was told that everything was “okay.” 

At that point, Mason broke down in tears feeling like she “wasn’t being believed.” She then started “begging” doctors for an MRI to figure out the cause of her symptoms.

“It was only when I demanded an MRI that things started to happen,” she said, telling BBC that doctors only offered the scans in order to give her “peace of mind.”

“I knew there was something wrong,” she added.

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Mason received an MRI and in June 2022, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer after a 6.5-centimeter tumor — “the size of a tennis ball” — was discovered.

“Finding out I had cancer was devastating, but what was harder to understand was that I’d been attending medical appointments for years and had received a clear smear test six months earlier,” she said. “Even now I’m still left wondering how long I’d had cervical cancer for and whether it should have been spotted earlier.”

​​”I lost my faith in the doctors,” she admitted. 

Mason — who is mom to son Teejay, 17, and stepdaughter Brooke, 18 — said her diagnosis was devastating and she had to immediately begin months of chemotherapy and radiation. 

Additionally, a follow-up MRI in February 2023 revealed that Mason’s tumor was still there and she would need to undergo a hysterectomy, ending her chance to have more children with her husband Dan, 43.

“Me and Dan had always discussed having another child but for that to be taken away from us was hard to accept,” she said.

Mason admitted that her delayed cancer diagnosis changed everything.

“It took over our lives,” she shared. “My body is wrecked from everything I’ve been through but mentally too, my friends, my family, my home life, everything just revolves around that.”

Mason explained her health problems are “never-ending” and she still experiences bleeding and will need more biopsies in the future. She expressed her disappointment in how many women go through similar situations.

“I’ve always got this worry in the back of my head, what if they miss something again and this time I don’t survive it?” she told the outlet. “A lot of women-specific issues are just not recognised [quickly] enough. They just dismiss it as ‘your time of the month’ or ‘women’s issues.’”

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Mason is now cancer-free but admitted that she still deals with lasting physical and emotional effects.

“When I was ill I rushed and planned my wedding and made a will in case I didn’t survive,” she said. “In some ways I know I’m one of the lucky ones as I’m alive and cancer free, but it’s difficult not to think I wouldn’t have had to go through what I have had I been listened to.”

“I still live with the mental and physical scars. I’ve got aches and pains and sometimes I can’t walk properly.” she continued. “While I’m cancer free it feels like the impact of cervical cancer on me won’t go away.”