Self-administered cervical cancer test catches stage 3C1 diagnosis in 31-year-old

Amber Sims was 31 years old and living what felt like a settled life when something shifted. She taught music, rode thoroughbreds with her mother and sister, and spent her creative energy on everything from her job to sewing race-day outfits. But persistent abdominal pain and fatigue had begun to nag at her—a physical whisper that something was wrong. She decided to trust that feeling.

In mid-2025, she went to her doctor for blood work. While she was there, she also took advantage of a new cervical screening option: a self-administered test. It was routine, unremarkable. A few days later, the clinic called with an urgent referral to a gynaecologist. Biopsies followed. The diagnosis came back as stage 3C1 cervical cancer.

Sims is the kind of person who prefers to carry her own weight. In those early days after diagnosis, she attended appointments alone, absorbing the information before telling anyone close to her what was happening. She needed to understand what she was facing before she let others into it. But once the full scope of treatment became clear—11 weeks of chemotherapy, 25 rounds of radiation, and four sessions of brachytherapy, all scheduled through Christmas and New Year—the weight became too much to bear alone.

Her mother and sister became her foundation. So did her best friend Gabby Cashmore, who understood something crucial about supporting someone through cancer: the person being treated is still a person. "I think cancer is something that has happened to someone," Cashmore says. "It's not their whole identity." Some days that meant sitting with Sims's fear and the physical toll of treatment. Other days it meant talking about work, about plans, about gossip—anything that kept her tethered to who she was before the diagnosis.

But there was another presence that proved equally vital: Tracey White, a Cancer Society nurse. Every Wednesday, usually the day after chemotherapy, White would call. She would ask questions, listen carefully, and keep asking until the real weight beneath the surface came into view. "Every time Tracey rang, I was like, 'I'm fine,'" Sims recalls. "But she would keep asking questions and just get little bits out of you. It really helped to take that sort of weight off your shoulders." White saw her role as providing a steady layer of support—answering questions, helping with practical matters, checking on mental wellbeing, being a calm voice when everything felt overwhelming. Cashmore watched this unfold and recognized its importance. "There are days that Tracey probably got Amber through that we couldn't kind of get her through," she says.

Now, with treatment behind her, Sims describes her life as "back to normal but not normal." She faces check-ups and the hope of hearing the words "cancer free." But she has also become an advocate, using her experience to encourage others to listen to their bodies. "You know your body," she says. "If something doesn't feel right, keep pushing for answers." Her goals have shifted too. Where once she imagined a conventional trajectory—career, marriage, children—she now thinks differently. "I used to think I had my life in order and things would go like that, but now I think you never know what tomorrow brings," she says. "My goal for future me now is just to be healthy and be cancer-free." She wants others to know what the Cancer Society made possible for her: the difference between facing a frightening diagnosis alone and having someone there to listen, to guide, to care.