After over three years believing she was cancer free, Scottish TV host Jo Wilson got life-changing news: “I was told my cancer had returned in a lymph node.”
“I couldn’t believe it — it felt like my whole world had crumbled all over again,” the Sky Sports presenter wrote in an Instagram post Tuesday.
But her cancer hadn’t actually returned. And it took her months of grueling testing and constant stress before she learned the truth.
She’s spoken candidly about grappling with the disease in a 2025 documentary called “Football, Cancer and Me,” where she spoke to soccer players who also faced cancer.
Wilson was originally diagnosed in 2022 after a routine Pap smear, which looks for abnormal cells in the cervix. She was diagnosed with stage three cervical cancer in September 2022.
After treatment, doctors told her there was “no evidence of disease” by March 2023.
But after her three-year scan in February 2026, she was told it had come back — and was referred to a team for high dose radiation to target and kill the cancer.
That’s where a consultant questioned whether her diagnosis was actually correct, she said.
“What followed were five months of tests, scans, waiting and uncertainty before, last week, I finally got the news I’d been desperately hoping for: It wasn’t cancer after all,” she wrote.
In cervical cancer, malignant cells can spread up the pelvic lymph nodes. If they spread far enough, they can block the tubes draining the kidneys.
What doctors saw in her pelvic lymph nodes, Wilson said, “is now thought to be a benign neuroma — a cluster of nerves that was likely inflamed at the time of my original scan.”
A neuroma can form in the cervix can form after trauma to the nerves, like surgery.
When Wilson learned she didn’t actually have cancer, “the relief was indescribable, but so too is the emotional toll from the last five months, believing — then not knowing if my cancer had returned.”
“Living with that uncertainty was incredibly hard. On the outside, life carried on — I worked, was being a mum, played (lots of) padel, spent time with friends and family, and smiled for photos. But underneath it all, I was carrying something very heavy, and there were times I found myself in some very dark places.”
She highlights that many people who’ve dealt with cancer may talk about being “cancer-free” or hoping to one day be free from it — “but I’m not sure any of us ever truly feel free of it.”
“The fear of recurrence can stay with you long after treatment ends, and I think it’s important we talk about that reality.”
Cancer is good at lying low and evading detection, either by keeping numbers small, or laying dormant for years. They can also develop resistance to therapies like chemo and radiation, and come back, sometimes even worse than before.
Recurrence after treatment and remission affects 10–15% of early-stage and 30–50% of advanced-stage cervical cancer patients. In 2022 and 2023, Wilson had a late stage, stage 3 cancer.
“The last few months on here have probably looked like lots of happy moments, lovely places and time with people I love — and those moments were all real,” Wilson said. “But they existed alongside this. Instagram is a highlight reel, not the whole story.”
Most cervical cancers (90%) are caused by human papillomavirus, or HPV. And when given on time, the HPV vaccine prevents 90% of HPV cancers, which along with cervical cancer, includes anal, throat, and penile cancer in men.
She urged her 54,600 followers to “be kind.”
“Because we never really know what someone else is carrying. A friend, a colleague, the person serving you coffee or standing next to you in the supermarket — they could be fighting a battle you know nothing about.”
