17 November 2023 , 19:00
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David Tennant 's wife, Georgia, was told she had cervical cancer five years before NHS England promised to eliminate the disease by 2040.
The mum-of-five, 38, who has been married to the Doctor Who star since 2011, said a simple smear test saved her life as it "stopped, beat and cut out" her cervical cancer before the disease had time to spread.
This week, NHS England boss Amanda Pritchard said that with improved rates of vaccination and screening, the point where almost nobody gets the cancer could be achieved within two decades.
For Georgia, the deadly disease was caught before significant damage was done. However, the actress admitted she had begun planning her own funeral after seeing abnormalities in her test. In her personal blog post from 2018, she urged women to book smear tests so that they can avoid similar situations.
Georgia Tennant said a simple smear test saved her life (Instagram)
She has been married to Dr Who star David since 2011 (Dave J Hogan/Getty Images)Sharing a picture of herself in her hospital gown, she wrote: "Here I am on 22nd February 2018. Although 'tis indeed a fetching look, if you'd like to learn more about why you should never miss a smear test please read the story attached in bio. #cervicalscreeningawarenessweek."
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Georgia continued: "Before I'd made it up upstairs to tell my husband, I'd started planning my funeral. Having kids takes you to that place pretty quickly I find."
Recalling the time when she returned to the doctor's office, Georgia found out she had CIN 2 - known as pre-cancer. Doctors were then forced to perform a cervical excision on the actress.
The mum-of-five penned: "The lovely doctor called yesterday. Results are back. It was cancer. They've got it all but it was cancer. Survived cancer without ever realising I had it. As you can tell I’m still processing this, it's quite a thing to get your head round. My betraying little cervix had begun an attempt to kill me off and by a stroke of baffling luck I had stopped it, beat it, cut it out before it had a chance to make it out of the starting gates (that’s dog racing speak for 'hadn't spread beyond the layers they'd already removed')."
She added: "Survived cancer without ever realising I had it. As you can tell I'm still processing this, it's quite a thing to get your head round. The swirling storm cloud of 'what ifs?'. I'm currently half terrified child, half superhero."
Georgia then urged others to take the smear test, as she wrote: "If the first part of the story didn't hit home, I hope this bit does. From borderline changes to cancer to cancer free in mere months. It really could have been a different story. One I will be forever grateful I didn't have to tell."
Georgia and David have been married since 2011. The pair share children Ty, 21, Olive, 12, Wilfred, 10, Doris, eight, and Birdie, three. Ty, who is Georgia's son from a previous relationship when she was 17, has been adopted by David and is now following in his parents' footsteps as an actor.
* For information and support for cervical cancer, please visit www.jostrust.org.uk or call 0808 802 8000