Jo Wilson: Sky Sports News presenter announces she has stage 3 cervical cancer
Sky Sports presenter Jo Wilson has revealed she has been diagnosed with stage 3 cervical cancer and is undergoing life-saving radiotherapy and chemotherapy treatment.
The 37-year-old mother-of-one, who has hosted programmes on the sports network since 2015, went for a routine smear test in June and was told there were signs of cancer.
Further tests a month later showed Wilson had 3b cervical cancer that had spread to two of her lymph nodes.
Wilson, who lives in the Cotswolds with her partner of six years Dan and 23-month old daughter Mabel, told OK! magazine she broke down in tears after receiving the news and asked doctors if she was going to die.
‘I cried while a lovely nurse held my hand,’ she said. ‘Then I cried to Dan, and he was quite shocked because he didn’t really think it would be cancer.
‘You’re desperately hoping there’s a chance it might not be.
Sky Sports presenter Jo Wilson has revealed she is battling cervical cancer and is undergoing radiotherapy and chemotherapy treatment
Wilson, 37, is a regular face on Sky Sports News and has presented on the channel since 2015
‘I said to the doctor “Am I going to die?”
‘You’re not going to die,’ he reassured me. “It’s very treatable, and it’s very curable.”
‘I try to hold onto that, but there are no guarantees. The percentages are still a bit ropey. There’s something like a 70 per cent success rate for this treatment.
‘So I’ll take that. But you do still think about the fact there’s a 30 per cent chance it won’t work.
‘The lack of control can be quite difficult, because the treatment will either work or it won’t. I’m trying to live in the present and get this through.’
Wilson with her one-year-old daughter Mabel in a picture posted on her Instagram account
Wilson asked doctors if she was going to die after being given the diagnosis in the summer
She added: ‘I try to believe everything else is in my favour, my age and I am fit. I must hang on to the positives.
‘It’s terrifying to think I could have put it off even longer. Cervical cancer can be quite slow growing. But it’s different for everybody.
‘I don’t want anyone to have to go through what I am right now.’
Wilson, who hails from Perth in Scotland, graduated from Glasgow Caledonian University with a Masters in journalism in 2011, beginning as a graduate trainee at Sky Sports News that same year.
She later became a sub-editor and then a co-producer before making her screen debut on the channel in 2015.