Campaign after daughter's death from cervical cancer

A PONTEFRACT mother has spoken of her fight to ensure more women use lifesaving tests after her newlywed daughter died from cervical cancer two years ago.
CAMPAIGN: Emma Fisk.CAMPAIGN: Emma Fisk.
CAMPAIGN: Emma Fisk.

Former Leeds Building Society employee Emma Fisk was denied a smear test because at 22 she was deemed too young to be at risk.

She died at the age of 25, less than six months after marrying her long-term boyfriend, Daniel, having been diagnosed with a rare form of cervical cancer called neuroendocrine carcinoma. While this cancer is highly unlikely to have been picked up on the routine screening, her mother, Adele Willis, is campaigning for the test to be made more readily available to younger women in the hope that it can save the lives of others.

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“I don’t want anyone else to go through what we have been through as a family, but more importantly what Emma went through,” said Mrs Willis, 51, of Ackworth in Pontefract.

“It’s heartbreaking. There isn’t a moment, or a minute, that goes by that I don’t think of Emma.

“Everything now is tinged with a little bit of sadness. It’s so unnecessary, this loss of life. There’s no need for it. Emma was too amazing, and wonderful, and my best friend. She was so brave. She was the glue to our family.”

Mrs Fisk’s family, her four sisters and two brothers, mother Adele, step-father Martin, father Colin and step-mother Ashley, are calling for change and wider access to screening through the Team Emma Campaign, set up in her memory.

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