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Your Life: Four Years Ago, Docs Gave Me Months to Live

Posted on: Wednesday, 8 June 2005, 06:00 CDT

FOR years, Ann-Marie Ciccini lived the kind of life most of us can only dream of, swanning around at film premieres and going on modelling trips to exotic places.

She had a swish Chelsea home, designer clothes, a size-eight figure - and even enjoyed a fling with rocker Rod Stewart.

But all the glamour and glitz turned to ashes when, out of the blue, she was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and given just three months to live.

As she faced fighting for her life, the things that really mattered to her became crystal-clear.

"At the time I was diagnosed my little boy was only five years old," she says. "I had split up with his dad, so I was all he had. The thought I might not be around for him was too much to bear. I knew I had to fight this illness for him - and that's what I did."

Ann-Marie had already proved herself a battler. She was given up for adoption by her natural mother and she was blackmailed by her first husband when their marriage broke down. But she had gone on to build a successful modelling career and property business that funded her champagne lifestyle.

When the modelling first took off, her husband, musician Colin Campbell grew jealous and aggressive.

The marriage collapsed, and Campbell was later jailed for threatening to send nude pictures of Ann-Marie to her business friends and colleagues.

She found work at a Ferrari showroom - and it was there she met Rod Stewart.

"It was the late 1980s and Rod came in to buy a car," she recalls. "We started dating and I thought I was the luckiest girl in the world."

They were never photographed together, but for nine months she visited Rod whenever he was in England. They even reportedly made love in the back of his Lamborghini.

But Ann-Marie's hopes of a future with him came to an abrupt end when she read in a newspaper that he was to marry Rachel Hunter.

Soon afterwards she met another man and had a son, Duncan, with him. When they split up, Ann-Marie threw herself into life as a single mother. But she didn't neglect her career, building up her property business and a company which specialised in childproofing homes.

Then she made a decision she was to regret bitterly.

"It was wonderful having Duncan," she says. "I breastfed him, but when I stopped my boobs just disappeared.

"I was a 34B, but they shrunk to an A-cup and looked terrible. I'd always been quite proud of my body and I wanted to feel good about myself again, so I decided to have implants.

"I had two disastrous operations. One set of soya implants were placed too high on my chest and another set leaked. Then I finally had successful surgery using silicone implants and I was happy at last."

But not for long. In 2001 she developed a bad cough. Although Ann- Marie had smoked 20 cigarettes a day for 20 years, it never occurred to her that it could be lung cancer. After all, she was not yet 40.

"I was on the way back from visiting family in the States and a few days later I started coughing up blood," she says. "I was terrified."

Tests showed she had small-cell cancer in a lung and the outlook was grim.

"I couldn't move or speak when they told me," she says. "I later learnt that they thought I had three months to live but couldn't bring themselves to tell me that."

What they did tell her was not much more encouraging. She had a tiny two per cent chance of surviving for two years if she had treatment. Even if she survived that long, she would have a mere five per cent chance of living for long.

"I was devastated," she says. "Who would look after Duncan? I decided not to tell him and he still doesn't know. Every time I looked at him I'd start crying and he'd ask me what was wrong. I'd say: 'Nothing, sweetheart. Mummy's fine', which was really, really hard.

"I repaired my relationship with his father so that Duncan would have him to go to when I died. At first all I could think about was death - I even planned my funeral and what I'd wear." Ann-Marie had six months of chemotherapy, followed by radiotherapy. "It was utter hell," she says simply. Then, on top of all her other problems, she noticed that her breasts felt tight and uncomfortable.

"I wasn't concerned at this point - just glad the treatment seemed to be working," she says. "But then I was about to have radiotherapy on my brain - small-cell cancer tends to appear there after the lung - and I noticed these lead moulds on a shelf. They were in the shape of body parts, including breasts.

I ASKED the nurse what they were and her answer left me cold. She said they were for putting over vulnerable body areas such as breasts with implants, as radio- therapy could make them rock-hard.

"Suddenly I knew what this tight feeling in my chest was. Why had nobody told me? All the doctors knew I had implants, but no one had said anything about the dangers.

"I knew I was incredibly lucky to have survived cancer, but I was still so angry that I had this fresh hell to deal with."

Ann-Marie She is also furious that she was never told by a cosmetic surgeon of the problems she could face if she ever had radiotherapy in the future.

Four thousand women had breast enlargements in the UK last year. Ann-Marie wants them and any others considering surgery to know what the effects of cancer treatment on them could be.

The pain in her breasts has grown increasingly severe. "Now it's all around the edges of my breasts and my nipples feel like someone is pulling a string inwards from the inside," she says. "I used to ride and go to the gym but I can't do either now. I even have trouble parking my car because I can't turn round to look over my shoulder.

"I can't wear the feminine, underwired bras I used to love because of the pain and one of my breasts is higher than the other where it's tightened.

"I can't bear anyone to touch me there, let alone see me naked."

Ann-Marie was told she would have to have the implants removed - and reconstruction would not be available on the NHS.

And after years unable to work because of cancer she couldn't afford the pounds 5,000 to have it done privately.

"It meant I'd be left with two saggy bits of skin," she says. "I was in pieces, in floods of tears and angry as hell.

"The health service saved my life, and for that I am very, very grateful, but now they want to take my femininity away and leave me with nothing. "

Months of agony and worry were relieved when a friend offered to lend Ann-Marie the money to have the surgery. Even better news is that her cancer is in remission, although she has been told it could return.

Despite that warning, she still smokes - which might be thought strange behaviour for a mother who has had lung cancer.

"I know many people may think I'm stupid or selfish, but I think it just shows what a horribly addictive drug nicotine is," she says. "I've tried to give up, but I've just never been able to manage it for long."

She is adamant she will not be beaten by the disease. "Four years ago I was given three months to live and I'm still here," she says. "Now I plan to start up my business again in the autumn and I feel positive about the future.

"When you are diagnosed with cancer it's possible for people to think it is the end. I want people to know there is hope - and there is a future."

LUNG CANCER: THE FACTS

Lung cancer is the most common form of cancer in the world and kills more than 33,000 people in the UK every year. More women now die from lung cancer in the UK than from breast cancer.

Smoking and passive smoking cause nine out of 10 cases. Lung cancer specialist, Dr Mick Peake, who's based at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, says: "The disease is decreasing among men but in women it's steadily rising. This is because women only started smoking heavily in the 70s and 80s, so the disease is only being diagnosed now."

One in five people diagnosed with lung cancer have small cell cancer, which tends to spread very quickly. While it can be treated with chemotherapy, only around 25 per cent of sufferers survive one year, and just 7 per cent are alive five years after diagnosis. The sooner treatment starts, the better the chances of survival. Symptoms include coughing, chest pain, shortness of breath, loss of appetite and weight loss.

In 2003, 23,245 men and 15,165 women were diagnosed with lung cancer, which accounts for one in seven new cancer cases in the UK.

Source: Daily Mirror

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