Jo Wilson: I missed a cervical smear test – and it almost cost me my life
With her model looks, adorable young family and idyllic Cotswolds cottage, Jo Wilson seemed especially blessed. The Perthshire-born star had run for her county, receiving a New York sports scholarship in her teens, before landing a job at Sky Sports News in 2011, going on to become a presenter there in 2015.
In a Fulham bar she’d met boyfriend Dan Mcgrath along the way, and they welcomed baby Mabel in 2020, with the pair excitedly swapping city life for a quieter one in the country. The ideal spot to raise a family. The future seemed rosy.
But cancer had other ideas – and life took a very different turn.
Wilson, having always prided herself on being fit and healthy, had dutifully attended all her smears until the time she was invited to attend one while expecting Mabel.
As smear tests aren’t advised during pregnancy, the presenter remembers putting the letter away. “I always meant to get around to it once I could, postnatally. How I regret not doing that now,” she says.
After Mabel’s arrival, she had extreme fatigue, heavy, irregular periods and a niggle that something wasn’t “quite right”. But she put it all down to being normal for any new mum, especially after a traumatic labour – involving a forceps delivery – after which she and Mabel both caught sepsis.
“In my mind, it was 100 per cent just a hangover from Mabel’s dramatic birth, although I’d started googling prolapses, wondering if I possibly needed a ‘little tweak down there’ or something?”
Because of her brutal labour experience, Wilson never did book the smear she’d missed while pregnant. “I just didn’t want to be prodded in that area at that time,” she admits. “Then with a new baby you’re exhausted, so self-care went out the window.”
It was 19 months after giving birth before Wilson eventually booked a private smear test. To her horror, the gynaecologist immediately said, “This doesn’t feel normal to me. I think there’s a possibility it could be cancer.”
“I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. I was so shocked,” recalls the 39-year-old, who’d always been fit, eaten well and mindful of her health. “But it’s a disease that’s out of your control.”
On hearing those words, Wilson burst into tears. “My very first thought was, ‘Am I going to die and leave Mabel without a mum?’ When you hear ‘cancer’ that’s what you think. It felt surreal,” she says.
The new mum desperately hoped the doctor was wrong. A month later, in July 2022, further investigations confirmed the diagnosis. What’s more, it had spread to her lymph nodes. She had cervical cancer stage 3C, “only one category under stage four, when a cure becomes tricky”.
Dark moments followed as she underwent six weeks of gruelling radiotherapy, chemotherapy and brachytherapy, which is internal targeted radiotherapy.
Every time she saw Mabel’s innocent face, Wilson would “be in absolute pieces”, explaining, “it wasn’t my own fear of dying, really, more the fear of leaving her, and not seeing her grow up.”
Dan, a project manager for an engineering company, was her rock at this time. “There was a lot of crying and hugging,” she admits. “I’ll forever be grateful to him for looking after Mabel, me and running the house during those weeks.”
The wiped-out presenter dropped a stone from her already slender 5ft 10in frame as the therapies battled her body.
Once the physical treatment was complete, Wilson then faced a mental challenge which arguably seemed just as tough – waiting eight months to learn if the treatment had worked.
“The lack of control was unbearable,” she says. Determined to stay positive, she made surviving for Mabel’s sake her motivation. And just three weeks after treatment ended, in September 2022, her and Dan, 43, married in an intimate Chelsea wedding covered by OK! magazine.
“It was touch and go whether I’d even be well enough to do it, but the fact he’d asked me to spend his life with him, after seeing me at my very worst, meant so much. Also, at the back of my mind I knew that if something bad happened, marriage would make it easier and legally more straightforward.
“It seemed right to make extra commitment as well as having a positive distraction while waiting for the scan results.”
Wilson was also determined to get back to work to take her focus away from cancer and live with some “normality”. She was back on air by Christmas 2022, and her “so supportive” Sky bosses arranged daytime hours for her, three days a week and some Saturdays, instead of presenting the early morning show. She remains on air today.
After eight hellish months enduring “scanxiety”, even naturally upbeat Wilson feared her death. Until in March 2023, a doctor finally said the words she’d longed to hear: “You are free of disease.”
“I cried from all the pent-up emotion and relief and joy,” she says.
Happily, she’s now approaching her first year of being what was formerly called “in remission”. Yet Wilson is not planning a big celebration to mark the occasion.
“I’m naturally positive, but a brush with death changes things,” she admits.
“On the one hand it feels amazing knowing my body is cancer-free. But I can’t take that for granted. It could change any moment. I’m not at that milestone yet, the next scan might not be good. So it’s tricky.
“Our first wedding anniversary was last September [2023], the same week as mine and Mabel’s birthdays, so we rolled all those celebrations together.”
Wilson’s not on any cancer medication, but still has three monthly check-ups (like smears) and scans every six months which will become annual. Each time, the week waiting for results means Wilson hardly sleeps from her “all-consuming” worry.
“Every niggle makes me paranoid. Everyone has a cough, but I start worrying mine is a tumour on my lungs. Sore back? I panicked it was a spine tumour. Luckily, through my work, I have private health insurance so I can get things checked,” says Wilson.
These days she aims for bed at 9.30pm. She’s regained her usual weight but “is more conscious about food now”.
“I mainly choose organic. And I was never a big drinker, but now I’ll only have a glass of wine if I’m eating out, or fizz on special occasions. I’m more conscious of the health impact of alcohol generally.”
Chemotherapy plunged Wilson into early menopause.
“I had hot flashes every couple of hours, I was moody and had brain fog, I was worried about functioning live on-air. I researched HRT, and it seemed like the benefits for things such as heart and bone health outweigh the risks for me. So I started taking a combined oestrogen-progesterone tablet daily within a few months of treatment ending, which helped symptoms,” she says.
The menopause rules out Wilson and Dan having more children.
“I’m 39 now, so it would’ve always been hard because of my age. Did it feel unfair that choice was taken away from me? Yes. But I’ve come to terms with it. I call Mabel ‘my little miracle baby’. She’s enough.”
Like 10 million other Strictly Come Dancing fans, Wilson’s eyes were wet watching Bobby Brazier (whose mum Jade Goody died of cervical cancer in 2009 when she was only 27) dazzle on the dancefloor and speak of his loss.
“It was emotional and yes quite triggering,” says Wilson. “Even if you’ve never had cancer you could see Bobby’s a lovely lad…I don’t even have the words for what that little boy went through. No child should lose a parent so young. I hugged Mabel tightly that night.”
“It’s taken longer than imagined to feel ‘normal’,” admits Wilson. “You forget what that even is, but I’ve got more energy these days.”
Her cancer experience makes her “sweat the small stuff less” and appreciate her “amazing” friends even more. “Life can be short, so I make more effort to plan fun things with them. Four of us let our hair down at Beyoncé’s Edinburgh gig, and we’re seeing Girls Aloud next. Grabbing the good times matters. And of course I nag them all about getting their smears, too.”
The television star had hoped publicly sharing her story might encourage women to have smears. Disappointingly, the NHS annual report found that 1 in 3 women still don’t. In fact, there’s been a 1.2 per cent decrease in the last year.
“I must raise awareness,” she says. “I want people to talk about whatever’s stopping them from going to their tests. Is it finding time? Is it embarrassment? I delayed mine because of my traumatic birth. How I regret that now.”
Wilson’s plea to others today is this: “Whatever support you need, or why you ever haven’t gone for a smear – go and be tested. I promise you, it’s far better than going through cancer.”
Jo Wilson donated her fee for this article to Jo’s Trust, the UK’s leading cervical cancer charity. For more information about cervical cancer see the website - there is also a helpline: 0808 802 8000.
Cervical Cancer Prevention week is January 22-28.
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