Early detection saved her life Caught in time ... cervical cancer survivor Chelsea Farry. CHELSEA FARRY was 23 when she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. And she considers herself very lucky. A routine, but overdue, pap smear caught the cancer at an early stage. "If I didn't have those screenings then they wouldn't have detected my cancer," she said. I'd had two previously and they'd come back normal. I believe a pap test has saved my life and if it weren't for the recommended guidelines I wouldn't have gone - I had no symptoms. Ms Farry, who lives in Brisbane, is concerned a proposal to raise the age for women to begin having pap smears to 25 would put lives at risk. The proposal also includes relaxing the guidelines for how often women are recommended to have the test, from every two years to every three. "If I'd had to wait until I was 25 ... then the tumour could have grown a whole lot bigger," she said. With an early diagnosis, Ms Farry's doctors were able to save her uterus. I was lucky enough to keep my uterus so I can still have children. If it had have been slightly bigger then the oncologist would have taken that out. If the current guidelines weren't in place I could still [be] undetected and it could have been too late.