Jade Goody smiling on her wedding day. Photo credit: Fame.
I did not know who Jade Goody was before the story broke about her terminal cervical cancer. I don’t know what kind of person she was before this happened to her. But my heart is just breaking for her and her two little boys. The former reality star, looking exhausted and medicated, was released from hospice care this morning in order to spend her final days at home with her two young boys and husband. Jade’s battle with cervical cancer has been fought in the public eye, she has said, in order to raise awareness of the disease, which may now be preventable through a new vaccine against HPV, which is linked to cervical cancer. Whether you liked her or not, she is very brave and her story is so sad. She’s not even 30 years old!
Jade Goody left hospital today after begging doctors to die at home surrounded by her family.
The terminally ill reality television star will spend her final weeks with her beloved sons Bobby, five, and four-year-old Freddie, and husband Jack Tweed at her Essex home, with the help of 24-hour nursing care.
The 27-year-old was seen wrapped in a red blanket, as she was wheeled on a trolley into an ambulance outside the Royal Marsden Hospital in west London.
Husband Jack walked alongside, gently holding her hand, and ensuring she was comfortable after she was hoisted aboard the waiting ambulance.
Her publicist Max Clifford: ‘She’s just left, I mean literally half an hour ago.
‘She’s on her way home and she’s in an ambulance with a nurse from the Marsden and Jack went in to see her and basically they’re on their way back to their home in Essex which is obviously something that she was desperately desperately keen to do.’
Mr Clifford added: ‘The whole point is that she wants to spend as much time as she can with Jack and the boys and obviously with the help from the Marsden and if they can train up the local Macmillan nurses they will keep her pain free by topping up the epidural.
‘It’s where she wants to be and where she wants to spend whatever time she’s got left and I would hope that they manage to keep her pain free so she doesn’t have to go into hospital again.
‘Jack’s with her, her mum’s coming over, they’ll be close friends around her because she’s got a lot of very good and very close friends,’ he said on ITV’s This Morning.
Her final journey home was granted after doctors were satisfied that her pain was able to be controlled.
The dying reality star is said to be ‘thrilled’ at the prospect of going home to her boys.
Yesterday it was revealed she is losing her sight as the cancer continues to devastate her body and can now only see out of one eye.
Jade hates her children seeing her lying in her sickbed in the Royal Marsden Hospital and is desperate to go home to Essex.
The photos accompanying this story are particularly heartbreaking. Jade looks close to death. The thought of those little boys growing up without their mother is so sad. I do hope that Jade’s mission of raising awareness is a success. Cervical cancer is one of the fastest growing types of cancer in the world- and the frustrating part is, if it’s detected in time, patients can recover fully. A good friend of mine is currently battling cervical cancer- her prognosis is good because it was detected early. Ladies, please make sure you are current on your pelvic exams!
Jade through the years: Photos of Jade on her wedding day from Fame. Photo of Jade before her illness from WENN. Photo of Jade after learning about her illness from WENN.
My heart breaks for her and her family.
May God be with you Jane!!
This is heartbreaking. My heart goes out to Jane and all her loved ones.
Her name is JADE not jane
Mea Culpa!
Poor woman; I can’t imagine facing the prospect of not getting to see my kiddo grow up. There’s no right way to say it, but I wish her a speedy and pain-free death now that she’s home. Nobody should have to suffer like this, what a horrible disease.
“I did not know what kind of person she was”.
An absolute moron. A chubby chav of ridiculously low intelligence who initially became famous for showing everyone her vagina, crying over a verucca and being so impossibly stupid that feotus’ could outshine her wit. She was pretty much hated in Britain. Then realised a perfume and everyone loves her. Fast forward a few years when she yet again demonstrates such idiocy and ignorance and ends up offending a whole country of people, by admittedly not a neccessarily malicious comment, who burn effigies of her.
Ok, it’s sad. She’s young, she’s dying, she’s leaving children. But cancer affects 1 in 3. She’s not the first, she won’t be the last. Aside from promoting smear tests to young people, this woman has every characteristic that I would not want my children to look up to.
*released, not realised. Well, isn’t that a kick in my face!!
^^ sounds like someone needs to up their meds. Why the hate, I mean, come on – the woman is dying.
The problem with Jade is that Jade, sans cancer, was neither a likeable nor in any way admirable person. I feel for her as I would for anyone in her situation, but her collusion with Max Clifford to turn what was a personal tragedy into a media horror show lost her an awful lot of the sympathy that would have been hers if she’d have the good sense not to exploit something so personal and sad. That the numbers of women now going for smears as a direct result of her cancer is of course a good thing but cancer can’t make her into something she never was, regardless of how Max Clifford and co try to spin it.
Cari:
And?
Patrick MotherFucking Swayze!
I second Wench and Geronimo’s comments.
I don’t like Jade as a person, but I do sincerely sympathise with her plight. As it happens I do think that she has some admirable qualities. Her work eithic is astounding – I mean, there are people who had a far easier life than her who resort to dossing on the Dole or to crime and blame it on her life. And although uneducated, no one can deny that she has enough of a brain to know how to work to get her goals. Ok, her salon failed, as did her perfume after the CBB debacle, but the businesses of those with far more education than she have failed also. She was working before she got into the BB house and she worked like the dickens once she got her bit of fame.
I’m not praising all of what she did, because, lets’ face it, she basically she kept herself in the news by herself and her ex allegedly belting the crap out of each other at regular intervals. Although unpleasant, I don’t see her as being uncaring – she grew up as her mother’s carer and is doubtless as good a mother as she can be to her two boys.
How she’s dealt with her illness is not to everyone’s taste, and it could possibly be quite difficult for the families of those suffering with cervical cancer to bear. But why is she being pointlessly criticised for turning to the form of media she’s comfortable with, when Roy Castle and John Diamond and others were admired for their honesty when they turned to theirs?
But I’ll tell you what we all should be doing – aside from cervical smears – is campaigning to make the cervical-cancer vaccine available to all girls and boys of 11/12 years of age. My useless government cancelled our planned scheme after the pretend budget because the €10m pricetag was deemed too high (although the treatment of the girls in the future will be way higher!). Apart from a few conspiracy theorists, this is apparently seen as being universally good in medical circles. Do what you can to make it an issue with local politicians and national politicians – ensure that it becomes an election issue – they don’t actively support it, you actively don’t support them.
Um.. she didn’t kill anyone or destroy anyone’s lives did she?
If she didn’t, I think everyone going through something like this deserves sympathy unless they really deserve it..and honestly that really isn’t very many people. I feel so bad for her and her family. Sorry, I’m a humanist. Sue me.
I certainly don’t mean to sound harsh to anyone saying differently, and I’m not British, so I clearly don’t know how the media was for her. But I just don’t think she did something so wrong, (and I’ve read up on her, wouldn’t want to be her best friend, but wouldn’t want to crucify her)that she doesn’t deserve sympathy when she’s dying for f*ck’s sake!
Thanks MSat for writing about her.
Wench, thank you for that very well written description about Jade and her um legacy of chavvyness.
Unfortunately just a few weeks ago I posted almost identical comments about Jade and was banned and censored. The feeling at the time apparently was that we could only post “NICE” comments about her instead of our true feelings.
Thanks for opening your mind a wee bit CB. Not all of us see her as the hero so many are trying to paint her as being. She is dying, yes its sad. But her relentless efforts to keep herself on the front page of the papers with her low class antics and selling of every personal aspect of her life is rather distasteful and hardly praiseworthy.
At least she put the money in trust accounts for her son’s. She may not be likeable but she’s admirable for putting a face on cervical cancer, and showing people how serious it is.
The information here about the HPV vaccine is misleading at best. There are many strains of HPV that are thought to cause cervical cancer, most of which are not prevented by this vaccine. HPV lesions take 12-20 years to develop into cervical cancer, the longest study of this vaccine was 5 years. The girls getting this vaccine are the real guinea pigs. It shouldn’t be required for any reason.
Scary, I’m presuming that you’re referring to my post. I don’t have a medical background, nor have I carried out extensive research for or against the vaccine. I’ll also throw my hands up and say that I have not read extensively from medical journals on the matter.
I did temper my comment by saying “apparently”, but perhaps my tone should have been more temperate. I said what I said as to date, I’ve not seen or heard any comment in the general media against the vaccine, other than from those who, like me, don’t have formal medical and from other things i’ve read from them, they generally dislike vaccines anyway.
Now I have heard that the vaccine doesn’t protect against all strains of HPV virus, so screening will always be necessary. But as always, i I’m wrong I will stand corrected. I’d be delighted if you could note articles which criticise the vaccine and help everyone here educate themselves on it. Just a word of warning – if you post links they will more than likely go into moderation at first.
Mairead – There is a vast and gaping chasm between the way Diamond, Castle (and Ruth Picardie) approached their experiences of dying and the grotesque, opportunistic, greedy, beyond tasteless way that Jade Goody allowed Clifford to exploit hers. Most of my contempt is for him: he should have exercised dignity and restraint on her behalf since she’s incapable of it, not to mention her heightened emotional and frightened state. But instead he created a ghoulfest of epic proportions. There are endless ways he could have helped her ensure her boys’ financial future. Providing a gory 24/7 breath by tasteless breath account was not the way to go. As I said earlier, sickening judgement fail on his part. He absolutely disgusts me.
Um – celebitchy – somebody else is using my name (which is fair-enough, it’s a very common Christian name) but they have copied and pasted my original comment and put an addendum at the end which I did not write.
This smacks of someone impersonating me as they did not say that they were quoting my original post – but instead suck on a “by the way”. Please amend this post by deleting the section which my original text and leaving only the last line.
(I’m on a different computer so I’ll try and go back and check my other one – otherwise, I’ve had a complete out of body experience where I not only double posted but did so under a different user account!)
@ Scary, not that I’m not saying anything bad about your post, it’s just that I didn’t write that, as I’m not sure if it’s your first post or not.
@ geronimo – thanks for the clarification. I don’t really watch the telly very much anymore and I don’t have satellite, and I only read a limited number of newspapers. I don’t disagree that there are classier ways of dealing with things and the poor woman has only a few weeks left, what’s the point in wasting energy on criticising her now.
Max Clifford on the other hand….
Mairead – that fake Mairead post appeared just as I was posting here this am. Note that it’s an active link to another site.
That has to be horrible for her kids to watch. Something they will never forget. Plus on top of that, when they are older they get to read how much she was hated. Nice legacy.