Celebrities Who've Lost The Battle With Cervical Cancer ( part III )



Kay Medford



Kay Medford (September 14, 1914 – April 10, 1980) was an American character actress and comedienne. She was the original "Mama" in Bye Bye Birdie, starring opposite Dick Van Dyke and Chita Rivera on Broadway, garnering excellent reviews, but lost the film role to Maureen Stapleton. Medford appeared in the Warner Bros. rock and roll film, Jamboree (1957), in which she played the manager of singer Pete Porter, played by Paul Carr. Medford made her Broadway debut in 1951 in the musical Paint Your Wagon. She was cast in Carousel, before she appeared on stage in Funny Girl as the mother of Fanny Brice (played by Barbra Streisand); for this performance she was nominated for a 1964 Tony Award for Featured Actress (Musical),[2] and when she repeated the role in the 1968 film adaptation, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Medford was cast in guest-starring role on various television series, including the 1958 Beverly Garland syndicated crime drama, Decoy. From 1969-1970, she co-starred opposite John Forsythe in the CBS sitcom, To Rome With Love. Medford also had a leading role on NBC's The Dean Martin Show for several years.

Kay Medford never married. She died from cervical cancer in New York City in 1980.




Little Eva

Eva Narcissus Boyd (June 29, 1943 – April 10, 2003),known by the stage name of Little Eva (after a character from Uncle Tom's Cabin), was an American pop singer.

Born in Belhaven, North Carolina, she moved to the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn, New York at a young age. As a teenager, she worked as a maid and earned extra money as a babysitter for songwriters Carole King and Gerry Goffin. It is often claimed that Goffin and King were amused by Boyd's individual dancing style, so they wrote "The Loco-Motion" for her and had her record it as a demo (the record was intended for Dee Dee Sharp).However, as King said in an interview with NPR and in her "One to One" concert video, they knew she could sing when they met her, and it would be just a matter of time before they would have her record songs they wrote, the most successful being "The Loco-Motion".Music producer Don Kirshner of Dimension Records was impressed by the song and Boyd's voice and had it released. The song reached #1 in the United States in 1962. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. After the success of "The Loco-Motion", Boyd was stereotyped as a dance-craze singer and was given limited material.The same year, Goffin and King wrote "He Hit Me (It Felt Like A Kiss)" (performed by The Crystals) after discovering that Boyd was being regularly beaten by her boyfriend. When they inquired why she tolerated such treatment, Eva replied, with apparent sincerity, that her boyfriend's actions were motivated by his love for her.She continued performing until she was diagnosed with cervical cancer in October 2001. She died 18 months later in Kinston, North Carolina, aged 59, and is buried in a small cemetery in Belhaven, North Carolina.

Mary Lundby


Mary Adelaide Lundby (February 2, 1948 – January 17, 2009) was a state Senator from the Iowa's 18th District. She served in the Iowa Senate from 1995 to 2009, serving as Minority Leader from 2006 to 2007 and as Co-Majority Leader in 2006. She also served in the Iowa House of Representatives from 1987 to 1995, serving as Speaker pro Tempore from 1992 to 1994. Prior to her election to the Iowa House, Lundby had served as the co-chair of the Linn County Republican party, as a member of the Linn County Republican Central Committee, and as staff assistant to then-senator Roger Jepsen. She graduated from Upper Iowa University, majoring in Political Science and History.

Lundby died on January 17, 2009 after a three-year battle with cervical cancer.

Nora Astorga

Nora Astorga Gadea de Jenkins (1948 — February 14, 1988) was a Nicaraguan guerrilla fighter in the Nicaraguan Revolution of 1979, a lawyer, politician, judge and the Nicaraguan ambassador to the United Nations from 1986 to 1988.
On February 14, 1988, "La Norita" died of cervical cancer in Managua, aged 39. She was awarded the title "Hero of the Fatherland and Revolution" and the Order of Carlos Fonseca on July 1987, which was the highest order of Nicaragua at the time.She appears as one of the twelve apostles in the mural of the Visitación at Casa Ave Maria in Managua. A barrio, or neighborhood, in Managua was named for her.

The 1986 song "Mariel" by the KBC Band was inspired by Nora Astorga.

Celebrities Who've Lost The Battle With Cervical Cancer ( part II )


1. Ann Christy



Ann Christy (born Christianne Leenaerts, 22 September 1945, Antwerp – 7 August 1984, Meise) was a Belgian singer who enjoyed success in her native country and is best known internationally for her participation in the 1975 Eurovision Song Contest,  when "Gelukkig zijn" ("Being Happy") was chosen as Belgium's representative in the twentieth Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 22 March in Stockholm.

Christy was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1982, and died on 7 August 1984, aged 38.




2. Colleen Dewhurst



Colleen Rose Dewhurst (June 3, 1924 – August 22, 1991) was a Canadian-American actress known most for theater roles  and for a while as "the Queen of Off-Broadway." She was a renowned interpreter of the works of Eugene O’Neill on the stage, and her career also encompassed film, early dramas on live television, and Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival. She was also renowned for her television work playing Marilla Cuthbert in the Kevin Sullivan TV movie adaptations of the Anne of Green Gables series and her reprisal of the role in the subsequent TV series Road to Avonlea (marketed as just Avonlea in the US).

Diagnosed with cervical cancer, Colleen's fervent Christian Science beliefs led her to refuse any kind of surgical treatment. She died at age 67 at the pet-friendly South Salem, New York, farmhouse she shared with her companion (since 1974), producer Ken Marsolais on August 22, 1991. 



3. Gloria Ramirez



Gloria Ramirez (January 11, 1963 – February 19, 1994) was a Riverside, California, woman dubbed "the toxic lady" by the media when several Riverside General Hospital workers became ill after exposure to her body and blood. Her case was the basis for a scene in one episode of the American TV series The X-Files, an episode of the American TV drama Grey's Anatomy, a segment of a show on Discovery Communications' channel Investigation Discovery called "The New Detectives, a third season episode of Weird or What? and the "Stink Bomb" segment of the animated film Memories.

On  February 19, 1994, Ramirez was brought into the emergency room of Riverside General Hospital by paramedics, suffering from the effects of advanced cervical cancer.  At 8:50pm, after 45 minutes of CPR and defibrillation, Ramirez was pronounced dead from kidney failure related to her cancer.

4. Guylaine St. Onge

Guylaine St. Onge (1965 – March 3, 2005) was a Canadian actress.  

She was born in Saint-Eustache, Quebec. After working as a model and a dancer, she appeared in the Canadian television series Mount Royal. Parts in other television series, including Lonesome Dove and La Femme Nikita, followed.

She played the role of Juda in the television series Earth: Final Conflict. She also had a role in the movie Angel Eyes.

In 2005, she died of cervical cancer at the age of 39.

5. Henrietta Lacks

Henrietta Lacks (August 1, 1920 – October 4, 1951) (sometimes erroneously called Henrietta Lakes, Helen Lane or Helen Larson) was an African-American woman who was the unwitting source of cells (from her cancerous tumor) which were cultured by George Otto Gey to create an immortal cell line for medical research. This is now known as the HeLa cell line.She died on October 04, 1951 due to Cervical Cancer.

The headstone, which is shaped like a book, reads:

"Henrietta Lacks, August 01, 1920-October 04, 1951.
In loving memory of a phenomenal woman, wife and mother who touched the lives of many.
Here lies Henrietta Lacks (HeLa). Her immortal

cells will continue to help mankind forever.  

Eternal Love and Admiration, From Your Family"



6. K.D. Wentworth


Kathy Diane Wentworth (January 27, 1951 – April 18, 2012), known as K. D. Wentworth, was an American science fiction author.

She served as the editor for the Writers of the Future Contest from 2009 until her death. One of her novelettes, "Kaleidoscope" (2008), and three of her short stories, "Burning Bright" (1997). "Tall One" (1998), and "Born Again" (2005) have been Nebula award finalists.

Wentworth died on April 18, 2012, from complications with pneumonia and cervical cancer.

Celebrities Who've Lost The Battle With Cervical Cancer  ( part I )


Cervical cancer is caused when cell in the cervix slowly become abnormal, or even through the sexually transmitted disease, HPV. Regular Pap smears are the best wear to detect cervical cancer. Here are the stories of some famous people who've faced the harsh effects of cervical cancer.



1. Eva Peron

The former first lady of Argentina, also know as Evita was diagnosed with advanced cervical cancer in 1951. She kept a tight lid about her condition, telling everyone that it’s just a uterine problem. She died from the disease a year later at the age of 33.

Eva Peron nee Duarte was born on the 7th May 1919, illegitimately into a large impoverished family. 
At the age of 15 she left the countryside to become an actress in Buenos Aires and by the age of 26 she had married Col. Juan Peron who then became President of Argentina and Eva became one of the most powerful women on earth.When her death was announced on all radio stations, shops closed, restaurants, bars and cinemas emptied and national mourning began. A huge crowd gathered outside the presidential palace and eight people were killed in the crush, another 2,000 needed hospital treatment.


2. Yvette Wilson



Actress Yvette Wilson practically lost her battle with stage 4 cervical cancer in 2012, and on top of that, suffered kidney disease. According to data, it is reported that African American women are more likely to die from cervical cancer as they have more trouble cleaning HPV, which usually goes away on its own in a year or so. She lost the battle and passed in 2012 at the age of 48.

Wilson (March 6, 1964 - June 14, 2012) was an American comedian and actress. She was best known for her role as "Andell Wilkerson" on the UPN sitcom "Moesha" and its spinoff "The Parkers". She has appeared on many comedy films as "House Party 2", "House Party 3", "Friday" and on Russel Simmons' "Def Comedy Jam".



3. Jade Goody



Jade Cerisa Lorraine Goody (5 June 1981 - 22 March 2009) was an English reality television personality. She came into the public spotlight while appearing on the third series of the reality TV program Big Brother in 2002, an appearance which led to her own television programs and the launch of her own products after her eviction from the show. 

Goody had a number of health scares throughout the 2000s. In 2002, shortly before her Big Brother 3 appearance, she had a cervical smear test which revealed abnormal cells, a possible indicator of cancer. She was later tested for ovarian cancer in 2004 and bowel cancer in 2006, but was given the all-clear on each occasion. She underwent hospital tests in early August 2008 after her fourth cancer scare. She had already collapsed four times. The test results confirmed she had cervical cancer; she was told of this on 19 August 2008 while in the Indian version of Big Brother, called Bigg Boss. Her spokesperson said, "It looks like her cancer is at an early stage but we will have to wait until she gets back to Britain and sees a specialist and has more tests".

On 1 September 2008 it was reported that Goody's cancer was "advanced and life-threatening" and that she would be having an operation followed by chemotherapy. Doctors warned that her survival chance could be as low as 65%. Further tests, and a radical hysterectomy, "went well" according to her publicist, and Goody began a course of chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

In an interview with Irish broadcasting company RTÉ she admitted having started planning her funeral. Furthermore, Goody told the broadcaster that she was losing all her hair and had decided not to explain her illness to her children.

On 4 February 2009 Max Clifford, Goody's publicist, confirmed that Goody's cancer had spread to her liver, bowel and groin. Therefore, the previous estimate of a 40% chance of survival was withdrawn and she underwent treatment to prolong her life. On 7 February, Clifford reported that Goody had undergone emergency surgery in London to remove a tumour on her bowel.

On 14 February, Clifford confirmed media reports that doctors at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London had declared her cancer as terminal and that she could be dead within weeks, and at the most was unlikely to survive more than a few more months. He stated "She was informed yesterday that tragically, she's terminally ill. She was obviously devastated."Goody then began drawing up a will and making plans for the future care of her two sons.

On 5 March 2009, Goody requested to be christened from her bed at the Royal Marsden Hospital; on 7 March she and her sons were christened. Clifford confirmed that this would be Goody's last public appearance, and that she had already said her goodbyes to her family. He stated, "We're hoping and praying that Jade pulls through, but the fact of the matter is that she now only has a short time to live." He also confirmed that doctors had said the next 24 hours were crucial to assessing how long it will be before she dies, but that she had only a very short time left regardless. Her husband Jack Tweed was allowed to extend his curfew so he could spend a final night with his wife before she said her final goodbyes to her family.

When news broke that Goody's cancer was terminal, medical authorities in the UK began reporting a surge in requests from women, particularly younger women, for screening for cervical cancer. This reversed a trend which had seen demand for screening decline overall in the past decade, with the highest decline being among women aged 25–29.

As a result of the publicity surrounding Goody's illness, on 13 March 2009 government health ministers agreed to review the NHS's policy of not offering screening for cervical cancer until the age of 25 in England (it is 20 in the rest of the UK). Goody issued a press release the same day, saying that she was "immensely proud" that she had helped prompt the review.

Goody died in her sleep in the early hours of 22 March 2009. Her mother, Jackiey Budden, husband Jack Tweed and family friend Kevin Adams were by Goody's bedside when she died. Her death was widely covered by British media. 

4. Angelique Pettyjohn

Angelique Pettyjohn (11 March 1943 – 14 February 1992) was an American actress and burlesque queen. She is best known in show business for her appearance as the drill thrall Shahna in the Star Trek episode, "The Gamesters of Triskelion". 

Pettyjohn is probably best known for her guest appearances in various 1960s television shows. In addition to Star Trek, Pettyjohn appeared on Mister Terrific, The Green Hornet, Batman, Love, American Style, The Girl From U.N.C.L.E., and as CONTROL agent in drag Charlie Watkins in the 1967 episodes of Get Smart titled "Smart Fit the Battle of Jericho," and "Pussycat Galore." During the 1970s, she worked as a burlesque star in Las Vegas.

On February 14, 1992, Pettyjohn died in Las Vegas, Nevada, of cervical cancer.


5. Anita Mui

Anita Mui Yim-fong (10 October 1963 – 30 December 2003) was a Hong Kong singer and actress. During her prime years she made major contributions to the cantopop music scene, while receiving numerous awards and honours. She remained an idol throughout most of her career, and was generally regarded as a cantopop diva. Anita once held a sold-out concert at Hammersmith, London, England, where she was dubbed the "Madonna of Asia" and brought her to further international fame. That title has stayed with her throughout her career, and has been used as a comparison for both Eastern and Western media.

Her career brought to a halt in 2003 when Anita announced that she had cervical cancer, she passed on later that year at the age of 40. Anita left a considerable amount of music and film legacies as well as her involvement in charitable work and humanitarian causing the continuing reason for her commemoration by the Hong Kong entertainment industry.

Hey Woman 

Tamar Eisenman & Asaf Avidan

            

Dee Standley: My battle with cervical cancer

When news of Kylie Minogue's breast cancer surgery was splashed on newspaper front pages all over the world four years ago, some breast cancer surgeons expressed concern that such blanket coverage might cause anxiety and even trigger cancer phobia. In the event, the impact was overwhelmingly positive. Within two weeks of Kylie's op, the number of women presenting for screening for the first time had risen by 40 per cent in the UK – and the numbers stayed high as the pop singer returned to glowing health.

Now, however, experts are anxiously assessing the likely impact of Jade Goody's high-profile experience of terminal cervical cancer and the Big Brother star's fund-raising plans to wed and then die in the public eye.

It couldn't be more crucial. With a persistent increase in rates of infection with the human papilloma virus (HPV) that leads to cervical cancer, attendance for cervical screening is at an all-time low. Screening for this cancer saves hundreds of lives every year as long as women turn for screening. Yet last year a million women, more than one in five of those invited for screening, didn't bother keeping the appointment – with one in three of these in the 25 to 29 age group.

Certainly, the 27-year-old former dental nurse who has made headlines since her first appearance on Big Brother in 2002, has made cervical cancer public in an unprecedented manner. Coverage has been mixed. Early on, her diagnosis clearly got women's attention, with a 20 per cent increase in attendance at smear clinics reported in the weeks after the announcement. Yet the antagonism that had The Sun running a Big Brother campaign to "Get the Pig Out" in 2002, and which surrounded the racism row surrounding Goody's appearance on Celebrity Big Brother in 2006, has continued. Although Goody has plenty of supporters in the public eye and on the net, one website, called When Will Jade Goody Die?, offers an iPhone as a prize for predicting the date of her death, and a Facebook group appeared briefly, titled, Yay! Jade Goody has Cervical Cancer.

"I do hope her plight will encourage other women, but I fear it may not," says Dee Standley, director of the life-coaching group AspireNLP and herself a survivor of cervical cancer. "I would love there to be a positive spin on Goody's story, whatever happens to her. But I worry that it could have the effect of driving more women into denial about cancer."

At 37, Standley is 10 years older than Goody, but has had "frighteningly" similar experiences of cancer. Like Goody, who was admitted to hospital four times with unexplained pain and sent home with painkillers, Standley suffered unexplained illness in the run-up to her diagnosis. She on a US business trip in 2004 when she collapsed and was admitted to hospital with pneumonia. "I had everything going for me; the six-figure salary, the sports car and all the trappings. I was slim and athletic, I'd swim before work and then go to the gym in the evening. I was also travelling most weeks. And for all the glamour, my immune system was suddenly unable to cope."

For both women, the diagnosis, coming out of the blue, was a profound shock. Back in Britain, and as a senior IT sales consultant, Standley was on her way to a high-flying meeting with clients when she took the call from her specialist telling her to make an urgent appointment. "He told me they'd found the first stages of cervical cancer. I understood exactly how Goody must have felt when she was told about the diagnosis in the diary room of the Indian version of Big Brother. My world changed completely in a few seconds." The response to diagnosis was different. While Goody's focus seems to have been as much on selling her story to the media as on getting treatment, Standley gave her all to getting well. "From those first few minutes, I treated the cancer like a work project," she recalls. After meeting the clients "as though nothing had happened", she spoke to her most supportive friend over a coffee and bought the most inspirational book she could find abut recovering from cancer (Lance Armstrong's It's Not About The Bike, My Journey Back to Life) – which she read at home that evening.

Even so, there were several times during the treatment that Standley's prognosis seemed as bleak as Goody's has proved. After the first of three colposcopies – internal investigations that assess and treat the abnormal cells – Standley was told the cancer cells had penetrated the wall of her cervix into the neck of the womb. "It meant that I had to have very severe surgery, removing almost the whole of the neck of the cervix."

What really upsets Standley is that she knew so little about the disease. 'The lack of information about cervical cancer is terrifying. I'm sure it must have been the same for Jade. At school biology, we did photosynthesis and dissecting a rat but nothing about this frightening disease. As an adult, I was usually quite good about going for my smear but I wasn't obsessive about it – as I am now. I never once thought about what the smear was for and I don't think I'm unusual in not understanding what smears are all about."

It's this ignorance, Standley believes, that is behind the poor uptake of cervical screening. "It's the only explanation that makes sense. Otherwise, why would someone fail to do something that is so simple, costs nothing and could keep them alive?" Such a view is echoed by the campaigning charity Jo's Trust – set up by London businessman James Maxwell after his wife, Jo, died of cervical cancer aged 40, having failed to get "good information about every aspect of the disease, including its causes, treatment options and prognosis". Its new director, Robert Music, says information is more widely available today. "But it's not always accessible to women most at risk of cervical cancer – those of Goody's age who come from a deprived background and are poorly educated."

Other people's stories can be the best form of education, according to Dr Ann McPherson, co-founder of the charity DIPEx, which has published more than 10,000 video clips of people talking about 50 serious illness on the website www.healthtalk online.org since it was established in 2001. It is expanding its coverage of cervical cancer to include women like Goody and Standley who have had severely abnormal smears and would like anyone who has been through that diagnosis to get in touch.

"It doesn't matter that the stories are about celebrities or even whether they've got happy endings," says Dr McPherson. "When you are after the truth, you want the whole picture: and that includes the good and the bad news and the views of people from different backgrounds and with different coping strategies. That's what we provide in a manner that's medically endorsed."

Standley, now the proud mother of baby Findlay, born prematurely last June after a difficult pregnancy, is the ultimate example of a happy ending to cervical cancer. After the colposcopies and extensive surgery, Standley was given the all-clear in June 2006 and became pregnant in October 2007. 'After being told that I had virtually no chance of having a baby after the surgery, it was wonderful to find I was pregnant. I had to inject myself in the abdomen to keep my blood thin and I gave up on exercise to make sure I'd keep the baby. It was very difficult – especially as my partner left me before the baby was born. But I stayed positive, ate well and now I'm a blissfully happy mother with a new, healthier outlook on life. I would like to do whatever it takes to urge other women to make a priority of having a smear.'

Robert Music is hopeful that whatever the outcome for Goody, the overall impact will be positive. "Currently, she's a very unwell young woman focusing on her children's future rather than educating other people. We hope that she will work with an organisation such as ours to tell young women to turn up for cervical screening. That could be her lasting legacy," he says.

Cervical cancer: The facts

What causes cervical cancer?

In 99.7 per cent of cases, it is caused by persistent infection with human papillomavirus. HPV is a common virus transmitted through skin-to-skin contact in the genital area.

How common is it?

More than 2,800 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer and 1,000 women die from the disease every year in the UK.

What happens in a smear test?

This is not a cancer test. It is to detect cell abnormalities at an early stage. Of those that are abnormal, the vast majority involve non-cancerous changes. Even when large abnormalities are found, there should be enough time to treat pre-cancerous cells before the disease takes hold.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/dee-standley-my-battle-with-cervical-cancer-1623693.html