Doreen was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1990 when she was in her early 60s. She urges all women between 20 and 70 not to be shy, and have regular cervical smears.

Cancer of the cervix is one of the most preventable of all cancers. It is estimated that about 90 percent of cases of the most common form of cervical cancer are prevented if women have smear tests every three years. Doreen has had cervical cancer. She encourages all women between the ages of 20 and 70 to have regular cervical smears.

Doreen, now aged 78, was diagnosed with cervical cancer early in 1990. She went to the doctor after experiencing some abnormal bleeding and was put into hospital to have a curette (scrapping some of the lining of the womb). It was during this process that the cervical cancer was discovered by a specialist.

Young at heart, Doreen is not shy to tell her story. She believes that a lot of our women don’t have a smear because of embarrassment

“And yet we’ve all had babies!” she says.  “I remember how they examined me when I was having a baby. That was embarrassing!

“A lot of our people who have women doctors might be different. I changed my doctor. She’s a woman and it’s so much easier to sit and talk to her and her staff in the office.

“But it’s very important to have a smear. Someone who has been through it might wake them up.

“They need to be informed because it’s something you can’t feel. It is not like having a toothache or a headache; it’s a silent thing.”

Doreen says while smears may not be much fun, they’re nothing compared to cancer treatment.

“A month after they found the cancer I started my treatment. There was no waiting around in those days; I was straight in there. I had to go and have chemotherapy twice a week, and this went on for about two years.

“It was around the end of 1994 that my specialist declared me clear. All up it must have been three and a half years of treatment that I had to go through.

“Once, while having radiation treatment in Palmerston North, I got up and went walking in the ward. I realised there were others with cervical cancer who were a lot worse off than me.

“Now when anything like that happens to me I don’t wait around. I go and get it checked straight away. Another kuia, she had the same thing and she just wouldn’t go to the doctor. By the time they found out with her she wouldn’t take treatment.”

“I had a lot of support from my own whanau and from my whanau at Kohanga Reo. They were all there for me. I still worked in Kohanga, I didn’t take time off for anything.

“A lot of people don’t know that I had cervical cancer. The ones that did know used to tell me to take it easy and I would say, ‘What for?’ I didn’t put matter over mind; I put mind over matter and I just carried on with what I was doing. And you can go out and do things and nobody can see it.”

Doreen says she’s had a good life, but that it’s these young ones that she is concerned about now. “I make sure that my mokos, the ones that are older, go and have their smear. 

“Now I just enjoy being alive, carrying on with life and being there for my family. When they try and push me in the background I get pukuriri. I want to do what I want!”

Doreen has a grand sense of humour, an openness to share and an incredible korero. Her strong sense of self and will to carry on with life is inspiring. She has nine children (five boys and four girls) 19 grandchildren and 19 great grandchildren, and she’s grateful she is alive to share with them.

“My husband passed away 27 years ago this year. He was only 50 when he died. I always used to say to him, I’m the boss because I’m three months older than you, and he used to say to me, ‘Get lost! I wear the pants,’ and I said, ‘So do I!’”

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