by Carla Roberson

Created on: April 04, 2009

I cannot begin to describe my feelings when I learned that 27 year old Jade Goody passed away from cervical cancer. I must admit, that I had never heard of her previously, nor was I even vaguely familiar with who she was during her life; but that soon changed. Recently, I read countless articles, including biographies about Jade, the person who she was and how she became famous.

My first feeling was deep sadness. How can anyone with so many hopeful plans for the future and a barrage full of dreams pass away so young? I then felt a myriad of other feelings ranging from anxiety and helplessness to disappointment. I felt sad knowing that her children would grow up without experiencing the touch of their mother, without seeing her laugh and without hearing her call each of their names.

At age 27, Jade was subjected to making preparations for her death, and arranging for the important financial matters of her children as she received chemo treatments and suffered endless bouts of pain from the diagnosis of cervical cancer which eventually overtook her life.

Her first abnormal pap smear was detected at age 16. She then underwent a surgical procedure to have the pre-cancerous cells removed. Following this surgical procedure, were three more abnormal pap smears. She received a letter in the mail from the doctor's office, advising her of the abnormalities and that she should have an additional surgical procedure to follow through. Jade said that after the first surgery, it traumatized her for life because it was so painful. Then when she learned that she had more abnormal cells the fourth time, her first thought was "that once you have them burnt off, they should not come back". She was too afraid to respond, so she ignored letters that came in the mail. In her own words she had hoped the disease would go away on its own.

Jade Goody was not the only famous young woman to have died from cervical cancer, although her death did cause a positive impact by shedding new light on cervical cancer and causing a multitude of women to come forward for cancer screening tests. Prior to Jade Goody's death was a 33 year old woman who had very little information on cervical cancer at the time she had been experiencing aggressive symptoms. Eva Peron, infamously known as Evita, passed away from cervical cancer back in 1952, ten years after the pap smear was invented. Although George Papanicolaou invented pap smears in 1942, they were not widely used in Argentina until the 1960's.

Contrary

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