I beat the cancer that's killing Jade
Just like Jade Goody, Karen Ridgway was diagnosed with cervical cancer and given a 40 to 50% chance of survival. And, like the reality TV star, she was given the devastating news that the cancer had spread. Karen, who was fortunate enough to win her battle with the disease, tells LYNETTE PINCHESS how her heart goes out to the dying young mum-of-two
KAREN Ridgway has the utmost admiration for the way Jade Goody is living what look to be the last few weeks of her life.
Like the TV reality star, Karen was diagnosed with cervical cancer, underwent a hysterectomy and was then told the cancer had spread.
But that's where the parallels end.
After treatment, Karen overcame her battle nearly 15 years ago when she was 37.
Karen, who works at Nottingham's tourism centre, has been moved by Jade's plight and the way she is battling the disease in the public glare to secure as much money as she can for her sons' futures.
Karen said: "Jade's so young. She's doing an absolutely admirable job under the circumstances."
Critics have blasted Jade for selling the rights to what might be her final weeks to the media, but Karen says: "It's for her boys. It's not something I could do personally but she's used to being in the public eye."
One positive aspect to come out of Jade's tragic story is that it has encouraged more women to have smear tests, dubbed the 'Jade Goody effect.'
However, 23,000 women in Notts are still failing to attend – a figure which horrifies Karen, who lives near Bleasby with partner Ken Baggaley.
She said: "They need to go. I think it's a mixture of women being busy or scared but if you've got children, a husband, family, wouldn't you do anything to keep yourself healthy to be with them?"
Jade, 27, ignored a letter telling her she must have abnormal cells removed from her cervix – if left there is a risk they can lead to cancer.
Karen discovered she had abnormal cells when she was recalled by her GP after a smear test in 1994.
She went into hospital for a biopsy and three days later was back before the gynaecologist.
In her heart of hearts, it was the news she was expecting – that she had cervical cancer. A few weeks later she underwent a partial hysterectomy.
Karen, now 51, thought that was the end of her ordeal but a few days later there was more bad news – the cancer had spread to her lymph glands.
"You go through an op and you think if I can get through this then that's it but then you realise that this is just the start of it and you don't know what the outcome is going to be," she said.
Doctors gave her a 40-50% chance of survival – the same prognosis as Jade initially.
Karen said: "I was so angry. I thought 'how dare you put me in that category?' It gave me even more determination."
Her emotions were all over the place because her father was battling cancer too.
She said: "I was diagnosed in the May and he died in the September. It was a tough time.
"It's harder to watch someone close to you and see what they're going through. You feel so helpless and you want to swap places with them. We just supported each other."
Karen, a former professional ice skater who toured the world with the Holiday on Ice show, had to give up her job at that time as a massage therapist at Victoria Leisure Centre in Nottingham, to undergo intensive treatment.
She had 25 sessions of radiotherapy, followed by chemotherapy and another 20 lots of radiotherapy at the City Hospital, which took almost a year.
Karen has a very similar ethos to breast cancer patient Maggie Keswick Jencks' – the woman whose legacy has been a network of Maggie's cancer caring centres like the one proposed for Nottingham.
Just like Maggie, Karen is a great believer in helping yourself through nutrition, vitamin and mineral supplements and positive thinking.
The latter wasn't always easy on days when Karen felt down until she was told that fear wasn't a weakness.
She found out everything she could about the disease and her treatment and found several self-help books very useful.
Dr Bernie Siegel's book about patients surviving exceptional odds, Love, Medicine and Miracles, was one.
Visualisation techniques suggested by Getting Well Again author Carl Simonton provided a useful aid when Karen was having radiotherapy.
"I did a meditation using a tape of my own voice. I visualised that the radiotherapy was a yellow light, a healing colour like the sun, which would dissolve the cells that were ill – I know it sounds completely loopy but it helped.
"I felt better because I was doing something myself instead of just giving everything over to the doctors. It gave me back some control."
After regaining her health, Karen completed a coast-to-coast walk with a friend.
"There is hope after a diagnosis of cervical cancer," she said.
"Don't ignore letters calling you for a smear test – it could save your life."
3 Comments
by ciaran, ARNOLD
Friday, March 06 2009, 11:00AM
“WHY IS SHE BALD?”
by marian, Notts
Monday, March 02 2009, 8:32PM
“Thanks for telling us your story Richard.
Karen,visualisation techniques are not 'loopy' but very powerful, glad you're well and happy again now...”
by richard, nottingham
Monday, March 02 2009, 2:40PM
“This is a story that brings back terrible memories for myself and family.
On our 13th wedding aniversery in 1983, I came home for lunch to find my wife sitting at the table crying. She had just returned from The QMC after receiving a phone call from The Consultant a Mr.Sears. She was asked to meet with Mr.Sears as soon as possible that morning, which she did. The news was utterly devastating, I will never know how she managed to drive home. The brutal truth was she had cervical cancer and this would reqired immediate surgery.
What had happened was that in the February of that that year my wife had displayed some show of blood at the wrong time of the month. An erosion was diagnosed and she went for day surgery in the May. She made a full recovery. However during the repair and D&C , samples had been taken and sent for Histology. The samples had shown seriouis iregulariteis. A letter was sent for urgent recall.This letter was along with others , never sent. The secrectary who should have done all the referals , aparantly had some sort of breakdown. In the September the mocro tapes were aparantly found and the realisation was tha some very ill ladies had not been seen for follow up treatment. The four month delay had allowed the tumor in my wife to become very large and spread further.
She was operated upon later in September 1983. She had radiotherapy and a radiation pack in The Gervais Pearson Ward. Nottm General Hospital.
A full recovery seemed a probabality. That was what she was told. I was told something very different. As the cervical camcer was already some two to three years advanced by the time it was discovered, long term survival was improbable, a life expentancy of about thre years from then Sept 1983. I was also told some very disturbing and cruel things. The worst was that it was having started sex young and having a number of partners that made the cancer more likely. This was not the case with my wife, she was just 18 by on month when we started seeing each other, I had met her earlier and knew her to be a thoroughly decent girl. I was her first and only man. So much for sleeping around bneing the main cause.
It was almost as if this terrible illness was her own fault.
The next months were an awful trial, I had to keep being happy and optomistic, but the surgeons words were constantly there. We had two very happy years in which I spent as much time as possible with her and our girls.
February 1986, the cancer was back with a vengance. Her suffering was indiscrbable. So much so that her father died heartbroken, a month before she eventually died. She was 37. I am certain that early screening, that is from 21 onwards would be a huge lifesaver. I have met girls of even younger who have had abnormal cells which un treated would probably have become the silent killer. Jade Goody is right and very brave to bring this to the general publics attention. Now treatment has move on a great deal and Radical surgery with chemotherapy often gived a very optomistic future It can be beaten, I have met a number of sufferers who now have the all clear. Twenty two years later there. is a big hole in our lives .”