Cervical cancer campaigner Lynsey Bennett 'beyond grateful' as she celebrates a year of progress

Sharing a video to Instagram, the Dubliner celebrated how far she's come in the last year.

"My one year still here, totes emosh and beyond grateful looking at that broken devastated girl you see in the first 30 seconds… [I] am so happy that she was right to have hope and [that] she has far too many pics and videos of her journey and life a year on."

The video begins with old footage of Lynsey from one year ago telling the camera that her doctors have told her that she is "incurable", and that palliative chemotherapy is her only option.

“I’m so hopeful to try and get some sort of quality and quantity [of life.]”

The video then moves to a text slide that says: “One year ago I was told my predicted time left on this earth was 6-8 months. And that my only option was a double dose of chemo that could kill me even with one session and if it didn't do that, it would only be a few extra months and would leave me with no quality of life.”

Lynsey then shares that she "chose to go a path less travelled".

“I call that path hope,” she said.

The footage shows Lynsey reuniting with her two daughters, Zoe and Hailee, as she recalls an Audrey Hepburn quote that she had beside her bed.

"Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I'm possible’."

“365 days,” she adds. “And you know what? They weren’t all good, but they sure as hell were all worth it.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she says over a montage of beautiful photos and videos from the past year, many of which include precious memories with her two daughters, her family and friends.

Lynsey ends the clip by saying: "And that is why you should never underestimate the power of hope and gratitude.

"Lynsey Bennett. One year still here, baby."

In September, Lynsey revealed that her tumours had shrunk thanks to immunotherapy drug Pembrolizumab that she received at a clinic in Mexico.

Earlier this week she revealed that doctors were “gobsmacked” by her progress.

"At the weekend I had doctors and nurses come into me and say, 'Lynsey I am absolutely gobsmacked’,” she told Shannonside FM.

"'I read your history before I came into meet you and the person I’m reading about in your file could not possibly be you, you look so healthy and happy and I cannot understand how someone can still look like that after what we are reading in your file.'"

Lynsey says the clinic she attended in Mexico saved her life.

"Mexico has definitely been the best decision I have ever made. Friday is one year since I was told I had six to eight months to live. They said with chemo I might see 12 months but I would have no quality of life.

"Mexico saved my life. There is no way I could be the healthiest I have ever been in the last five years of a cancer journey. I learned so much about healing."

Lynsey was one of the many women who were impacted by the CervicalCheck scandal. The 33-year-old attended four smear tests carried out by CervicalCheck between 2010 and 2016, and got a negative result each time.

Other women impacted by the scandal include Vicky Phelan and Emma Mhic Mhathúna. Emma passed away in 2018, while Vicky recently returned to Ireland from America to receive palliative care.