Jenny Agutter dismissed her friend Cath’s growing fears about her health

They were two anxious girls thrown together amid the chaos and homesick tears of their first day as boarders at Elmhurst Ballet School in Surrey.

Aged just eight at the time, actress Jenny Agutter says she ‘just knew’ she had found a friend in Cath Haynes.

And although Jenny’s Hollywood career  -  which included roles in the Railway Children, the Eagle Has Landed and Logan’s Run  -  meant their lifestyles have since been poles apart, they have been best friends for 50 years. 

But five years ago Jenny believes she let Cath down badly by dismissing her friend’s growing fears about her health.

‘I did what I would never ever do again  -  I told Cath she shouldn’tworry, that she’d be absolutely fine,’ says Jenny, now 58.

‘Weeks later she was given two months to live.’

Havingsuffered for months with vague symptoms  -  unexplained bleeding, achesand bloating  -  also dismissed by her doctor, it transpired that Cath was suffering from uterine cancer.

Seven thousand women a year, mostly over 50, develop cancer of the uterus (womb) and diagnoses have risen by a staggering 40 per cent in the past 15 years. So startling is this rise that many experts are talking darkly of an impending epidemic.

There are two main types. the most common, type one, affects 80 per cent of patients and is linked to the female hormone oestrogen. about ten per cent suffer a more aggressive, faster-growing form of cancer  -  type two  -  which does not appear to have any connection to oestrogen.

If caught early, about 80 per cent of women are cured after surgery, sometimes followed by chemotherapy and radiotherapy. however, chances of survival for later-stage cancers drop dramatically  -  to less than 45 per cent.

Uterine cancer is the most common cancer of the female reproductive system and the fourth most common that affects women, after breast, lung and the colon.

About 75 per cent of cases are in postmenopausal women and occur due to the changes in hormone levels during the menopause. Excess weight is the other major risk factor and experts believe that the rise is related to increasing numbers of obese women. 

Jenny, left, and Cath at ballet school when they were 12 in 1965

Alongside type one and two there are also rarer types of cancers  -  including leiomyosarcoma, a tumour that originates in the wall of the uterus, which is what Cath was diagnosed with.

The mother of two who lives near Barnstaple in Devon was 52 when she noticed that she had started spotting with blood in September 2004. As her periods had ceased a couple of years before as a result of the menopause, she went to her GP.

Cath, a singer, says: ‘I had a smear test but it didn’t show anything so doctors thought it might be to do with my menopause and I went away and just got on with my life.

‘Throughout that time, my stomach felt bloated and I had a constant feeling of pressure in my pelvic area, which doctors suggested was constipation  -  even though I knew that wasn’t the case.’

‘The scan showed a shadow on my cervix and my consultant at North Devon District Hospital recommended a dilation and curettage to scrape the lining of the uterus and see if the tissue showed anything significant, which it didn’t seem to,’ she says.

‘Doctors kept talking about conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome but, because all my tests came back negative, I don’t think they knew what to suggest next. I remember leaving the consultant’s office with a really uncomfortable feeling that something wasn’t right.’ 

Jenny recalls vividly the words she will always regret.

She says: ‘We met for lunch in July. I knew Cath was having a tough time  -  she was very weepy. Faced with medical opinion that seemed to be saying nothing was wrong, I did what most of us do in that situation; I offered reassurance.

‘It was a mistake I wouldn’t want anyone else to repeat. you have to listen to your body, even if the experts are telling you there’s nothing wrong.

‘If something doesn’ t feel right, then the chances are that it isn’t.’

In August 2005 Cath was rushed to hospital after she began haemorrhaging, and an ultrasound revealed that the shadow, dismissed previously, had grown. she was given a hysteroscopy  -  a procedure carried out under general anaesthetic that allows surgeons to see inside the uterine cavity, without the need for surgery, via optical fibres.

‘As soon as I woke up they told me it wasn’t good news. I had a tumour the size of a baby’s head in my uterus and it had attached itself to my leg vein. I was told chemotherapy and radiotherapy wouldn’t work because the tumour was growing too fast.’ 

Doctors told Cath’s children, Emi, now 36, and Tom, now 33, that the best thing they could do was take their mother home and get some nursing care because she would be dead within three months.

Dr Anna Winship, clinical consultant oncologist at St Thomas’ Hospital in London, explains the difficulty in diagnosing gynaecological cancers: ‘This cancer, similar to ovarian cancer, can be difficult to detect from an ultrasound. Patients commonly don’t get symptoms until the tumour has grown and even then they can be very non-specific.

‘Some cancers grow extremely fast so it’s possible, even in scans a few months apart, that nothing is initially picked up. In Cath’s case it affected the whole of the pelvis and, because it is carried by the bloodstream, it had moved into the veins in her leg, which is rare.’ 

Screen nurse: Jenny with David Naughton in the 1981 hit film An American Werewolf in London

Cath says: ‘I’d always wondered how I would react if someone said those fateful words, “It’s bad news.” I suddenly felt myself being cocooned in a bubble where one part of me was terrified while the other became incredibly practical. I knew I wanted to get my life started again, not plan for my death, and Jenny was a rock.’

Jenny, who lives in South London with her Swedish hotelier husband, Johan Tham, was left reeling by the diagnosis but went into overdrive to try to help her friend survive.

As patron of Ovacome, a charity providing support for people affected by ovarian cancer, she knew they had to act quickly, and they began phoning hospitals across the country to see if there was any hope of a cure.

‘We discovered that the Royal Marsden in London were conducting a chemotherapy trial on uterine cancers like mine,’ says Cath. ‘They’d had a 40 per cent success rate, which was better odds than I could imagine at that stage.

‘I started my first round of chemo in October 2005. I’d have one lot of medication one week, a different type the next, followed by a week off. Then it would start all over again and it went on until February 2006. I was incredibly weak and ill.

I lost my hair, I couldn’t eat, even my nails hurt and, to make matters worse, I split up from my partner of 20 years.

‘Jenny would be by my bedside listening to me moan while I sat for endless hours having chemo. We’ve always shared the same sense of humour so there were laughs and quite often a few raised eyebrows when Jenny would rush from the set of Poirot, which she was filming, still in costume.’

In March 2006, scans revealed Cath’s tumour had shrunk by two-thirds and the following month she had a 12?-hour operation to remove it.

She also had lymph nodes removed. These showed no signs of the cancer spreading.

She spent three days in critical care and a further two weeks at the Royal Marsden before being allowed home to recover for a month. she then began a five-day-a-week, five-week course of radiotherapy.

‘I felt incredibly sorry for myself,’ she says. ‘Being ill made me re-evaluate my life and I knew that my partner and I should have split up years ago. But it was still tough selling our family home and starting over.’

She adds: ‘I felt incredibly lucky to still be alive. although I spent my 30s singing in rock bands around North Devon, I had concentrated much of my life on being a mum, which I loved. After my operation I wanted to start singing professionally again and have formed an a cappella group called Three’s Company.

‘My daughter has two children, Millie, eight, and Sam, 11, who I love being with, not least because I know I came so close to not being able to see them grow up.’

Jenny is full of admiration for her friend and says she is an example of why women should always follow their intui t ion.

‘I know from my work with Ovacome that doctors will typically see one case of ovarian cancer every five years so they often dismiss the symptoms as less serious conditions.

‘We are too easily put off by doctors when they tell us everything is OK even when deep down we really feel that it isn’t,’ she says.

The charity launches the second phase of its BEAT ovarian cancer awareness campaign next month. the acronym stands for the main symptoms of the disease: B for bloating that does not come and go; E for eating less and feeling fuller quickly; A for abdominal pain; and T for telling your GP.

Cath says she is cautiously optimistic. ‘In may it will be five years since my life-saving operation. I had check-ups every three months for the first three-and-a-half years, then every six months after that.

‘Now I am looking to the future. I would say to all women, if you are concerned and your symptoms aren’t improving, pursue your GP even if you feel you’re being a nuisance.’

These cancers, sadly, are easy to miss  -  even for a trained GP  -  as the symptoms resemble other more common diagnoses such as irritable bowel syndrome or fibroids. A GP will see thousands of cases of these relatively benign conditions, and to pick out the one that is cancer can be extremely difficult.

However, post-menopausal bleeding is a red-flag symptom and should always be investigated. It won’t necessarily turn out to be uterine cancer, but tests should be carried out nonetheless.

Even then, as Cath’s case shows, sometimes in the early stages of a disease the initial investigations can turn out to be normal. the important message is to make sure, if you do not feel right, to return to your doctor and seek further investigations, even if this means repeating a scan or a test you have already had.

Written by Logan Hursh, staff writer

Sex. the word itself can cause some to blush and giggle, but there is increasing concern that this topic be discussed.

Here are the facts: one in four college students have a sexually transmitted disease.

Eighty percent of people who have STDs do not show symptoms, and 50 percent of college-aged people will contract an STD.

In collaboration with H.E.a.R, Spectrum, the Black Student Union, and the Activities Programming Board, USI hosted a “Let’s Talk About Sex” seminar Tuesday evening in Carter Hall to draw attention to these realities.

The event was part of Know Your Status week, which aims to increase awareness about the spread of HIV and STDs within the student body and the precautionary measures necessary for prevention.

The seminar drew a modest-sized crowd but the audience was actively participating and engaged in topics discussed.

Guest speaker Christine Tolis, assistant program director of student wellness for the Recreation and Fitness Center, discussed a wide range of topics topics such as proper use of condoms and dental dams.

“The seminar was very informative and entertaining,” said Tara, a social work major who wished to be identified by first name only.

“They mentioned that women are really susceptible to STDs and I don’t think that girls really know that,” she said.

“It definitely was informative and interesting when they talked about their own personal experiences,” said mark Boettcher, an international studies major.

“That made it a lot more personal and real to me.”

Know Your Status week will continue with guest speaker Hydeia Broadbent, who will present on the effects of HIV on the new generations on Thursday at a free event in Carter Hall beginning at 7 p.m.

Free HIV testing will be offered on Friday in the Student Health Center in the lower level of the Health Professions building.

Students are encouraged to take advantage of the free test and to learn more about what they can do to reduce their risk of contracting HIV and STDs.