Mags' story — transcription
I wasn’t actually aware that the campaign was starting for the vaccine but I was really pleased when I heard that it was because it is a big concern for their future.
My understanding was that it’ll be offered to adolescent girls in the first instance and then later on probably 5th and 6th years just before they leave school and that it helps to prevent the virus which is the cause of the cancer.
I have heard of HPV, I know that it’s the virus that commonly is the cause of cervical cancer.
There are the issues with the MMR vaccine initially that was the thought of what concerns is there going to be about that but I think that my fears for cervical cancer are probably greater than that, so that overrides any underlying fears.
I’m extremely pleased that my daughter will be offered the vaccination, it is something I don’t think teenage girls think about and even into young adulthood. I don’t think it’s in their mind.
The earlier there’s an education about it, starting at adolescence, that’s a great thing in itself and protecting them from adolescence into young adulthood is tremendous. I’ve spoken to her and checked out if she was OK about it, what her thoughts were and it was a good opportunity because it’s not something mother and daughter really talk about, you talk about lots of things during adolescence but cancer’s not high on the priority list. So it was a good opportunity to sit down and talk about the impact and importance of looking after yourself and taking responsibility for that.
I think the first thing was oh my goodness I’m going to have to get an injection, that was her biggest fear but I think that she was, that's fine if that’s what’s got to happen, and I think her only anxiety was around the injection itself and that’s a natural reaction for teenagers to be, I don't want this to happen, but that quickly passed and then we had a more useful discussion about the benefits of having it and she was happy after we'd had that discussion.
I would recommend the vaccine to other mothers, I think that it’s important that mothers and daughters do begin to talk about taking responsibility for themselves and preventing ill-health if they’re able to act on that it’s important and I think that discussion with their daughter is really important because it’s their future and if we can prevent ill-health that’s a really important thing.
