Woman's agony after sister's tragic death from cancer

Woman's agony after sister's tragic death from cancer

21 January 2015

EMBARRASSMENT about a routine medical examination was to cost Maria Hughes her life.

The Downpatrick mother-of-three lost a three-year battle against cervical cancer on New Year's Eve — her 38th birthday.

Devastated by the premature loss of her sister, Michelle Hughes has spoken out to urge local women to attend their smear test appointments.

For it was Maria's shyness about the intimate five-minute screening procedure, she says, that led to her death.

Michelle says she is as angry as she is sad by her sister's needless death and hopeful that her tragic story will encourage other women to overcome their fears and respond to calls for routine smears.

She admits she is filled with regret that, despite regular nagging, she could not persuade Maria to undergo the quick examination.

The eldest of three sisters, Michelle was a mother hen figure to her younger siblings and describes Maria, three years her junior, as "her other half."

"This is a young girl who died on her 38th birthday, leaving behind three children, because of simple embarrassment," she says.

"Our family has fallen to bits over her death. She was my other half. I lived for her. I went through all her treatments with her and it was horrible.

"I am just raging that I have lost my sister and that we had such a hard three year journey towards her death when a simple test could have avoided all this pain."

Michelle says she "nagged" Maria to take part in the cervical screening programme, which is offered to all women between the ages of 25 and 64, as soon as she was eligible.

"She could not bear the thought of the doctor carrying out the test," she said. "She was very private and shy about her body and she just never went."

It was three years ago, over the Christmas of 2011, that Maria began to fear something was seriously wrong.

She complained to her sister about unusual bleeding, which was originally thought to be stress or hormone-related.

Within weeks, however, she was diagnosed with late stage cervical cancer. Doctors estimated that it had been growing for about three years.

"She was told if she had been for a smear it would have been detected much earlier," recalls Michelle. "That is my big regret."

Despite her quickly deteriorating health, Michelle says her sister never moaned about her predicament or feared for the future.

"She asked everybody else how they were. She just got on with it. But she was never really well again."

Maria, who was hospitalised for eight months at one stage to be intravenously fed, posted messages online from her hospital bed warning other girls to get checked by their doctors to avoid a similar fate.

Michelle says she is aware of several women who began to attend for smear tests for the first time as a result.

She now hopes more people will respond to her call and says that will help her make sense of such a devastating death.

"I am angry but that will not bring her back," she says.

"Maria thought she was invincible, but she was not. At the end she could not eat, she battled constant infections and the hospital was her home. 

"She was released for a few hours on Christmas day and we took her home to watch silly movies and just enjoy being together. We had no idea her death was so near.

"It was much more traumatic than a few minutes of discomfort during a smear could ever have been. That is why I am asking women to swallow their pride. Just a couple of minutes could save your life.

"I hope this message gives somebody else a chance. Many people do not know what it is like to lose a sister so young. I wish I didn't know what it is like."