Patsy Ramsey Being Treated for Cancer
eartha...@yahoo.com
Patsy Ramsey fighting for her life
Recurrence of cancer has 'taken a great toll on her and her family'
By Charlie Brennan, Rocky Mountain News
April 30, 2005
CHARLEVOIX, Mich. - Patsy Ramsey is battling a fourth occurrence of
ovarian cancer, and people close to her fear she is losing the fight.
Friends report that Ramsey, 48, is staying at the Roswell, Ga., home of
her father, Don Paugh, as she undergoes outpatient chemotherapy
treatment in the Atlanta area. Her husband, John Ramsey, often spends
weekdays at their home in Charlevoix, where their son, Burke, is
completing high school.
"I can confirm for you that Patsy is presently in Atlanta, in order to
receive treatment for yet another recurrence of cancer," said Lin Wood,
the family's longtime attorney in Atlanta.
"It goes without saying that her recurrent battles with cancer have
taken a great toll on her and her family. Yet she, along with John,
remains determined and positive with respect to her prognosis."
John Ramsey spoke about his wife's health problems April 3 when he
traveled to New Covenant Community Church in Fresno, Calif. Patsy
Ramsey was scheduled to speak with her husband to a crowd of about
1,700 people, but her illness prevented her from traveling there. Burke
accompanied his father instead.
An official at the Fresno church recounted that John Ramsey - appearing
for a fee the church would not disclose - talked about his family's
struggle with the 1996 murder in Boulder of their 6-year-old daughter,
JonBenet, about the pain of having been viewed as suspects in the case
and about Patsy's renewed battle with cancer.
"He, like the rest of us, believes that (her recovery) is up to God,"
said church administrator Lisa Schumacher. "He's sovereign, and he's in
charge.
"We believe we will always be healed. Sometimes it's physical. But we
know that we're always healed, no matter what, once we get to heaven."
"Every time this (recurrence) happens, it's more serious," said a
family friend, who asked not to be named.
"I know that the treatment is taking a lot out of her," said John
Haggard, a prominent Charlevoix businessman and family friend.
Patsy Ramsey, born Patricia Ann Paugh on Dec. 29, 1956, and raised in
Parkersburg, W.Va., is on a standing prayer list in at least three
churches: two in Charlevoix, plus St. John's Episcopal Church, the
family's place of worship when they lived in Boulder.
"What she has is grave," said Jan Boss, education director at the
Community Reform Church of Charlevoix, which the Ramseys have been
attending for several years since settling full time in the picturesque
resort town that was once their vacation retreat.
"Our prayer group believes she is going to make it. Our prayer group
believes in miracles," Boss said.
"I remember the first Sunday they came in, about three years ago, they
just kind of slipped in quietly, in the back. When it was their turn to
do coffee hour, they did coffee hour. They just became part of us."
Linda McLean, who first met Patsy as a debate and speech coach at
Parkersburg High School, coached her in her preparation as 1977's Miss
West Virginia in the Miss America pageant.
Cancer fight began in 1993
McLean also authored the 1998 book JonBenet's Mother: The Tragedy and
the Truth, and is still in contact with the family.
"My husband died of stage-IV cancer," McLean said. "When a person has
stage-IV, it's an inevitable thing.
"Now, she's fought it, and she has beat it back, and she's done
everything a person can do. But that's what she had from day one. It
was stage-IV, so ultimately, probably, cancer will kill Patsy Ramsey.
But I believe that the stress that she had to go through (in the wake
of JonBenet's murder) took years off her life."
Patsy Ramsey wrote at length about the initial onset in June 1993 of
her ovarian cancer in the book she authored with John Ramsey about
their daughter's still-unsolved case, The Death of Innocence: The
Untold Story of JonBenet's Murder and How Its Exploitation Compromised
the Pursuit of Truth.
"I knew I was staring death in the face," she wrote. "I wanted to be
mad at somebody for doing this to me, and the only one I could think of
was God. I saw my children, my babies who were only 3 and 6 at the
time, as a gift from God."
But she said she soon felt "as if the Lord was saying, 'Those babies
are your reason to live. Get up and get with it.' Just as he had told
Job, 'Gird up your loins,' he told me to get up and live.
"I thought, 'You're right . . . We're going to beat this together. God
and me and the chemo.' "
Patsy Ramsey also wrote of a healing service, replete with a laying on
of hands, that the Rev. Rol Hoverstock, the minister at St. John's
Episcopal Church in Boulder, performed with a small circle of friends
at the Ramseys' home Sept. 14, 1993.
She credited that healing service and her continued fervent prayers for
the news she received after a follow-up surgery Dec. 26, 1993: that she
was clear of the cancer.
"The calamity of cancer had passed," she wrote at the conclusion of the
chapter. "I am a living example that God keeps his word."
The return of Patsy Ramsey's cancer was discovered, however, in
February 2002. It was detected through a liver biopsy, as part of her
annual checkup at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.
"They've overcome a great deal of adversity in their lives," attorney
Wood said at that time. "They will come through this one, too."
John Ramsey raised eyebrows around the country one year ago by seeking
the Republican nomination to the Michigan state House of
Representatives from the district that includes Charlevoix, finishing a
close second in the August 2004 primary. He lost by about 500 votes.
Prior to the launch of that campaign, Patsy Ramsey said in a
Huntington, W. Va., speech to cancer survivors in March 2004 that the
disease had returned for the third time.
And on the eve of John Ramsey making his campaign official, Patsy
Ramsey said in a brief interview, "I've been dealing with this since
Burke was in second grade. Every time it raises its head. We just need
to swat it down again."
Media scrutiny took toll
Friends said the public's suspicions, and the withering media scrutiny
of the Ramsey family, took their toll.
"It was an awful thing to go through, but the media and the public have
been so horrible to her, and in my opinion, have caused a lot of it,"
McLean said.
Many supporters see a ruling by U.S. District Judge Julie E. Carnes of
Atlanta in March 2003 as supportive of the Ramseys' claim to innocence.
In dismissing a libel case filed against the Ramseys by Boulder
journalist Chris Wolf, Carnes said the material she reviewed of the
evidence submitted in that civil action, which was far short of the
entire investigative case file, was "more consistent with a theory that
an intruder murdered JonBenet than it was with a theory that Mrs.
Ramsey did so."Boulder District Attorney Mary Lacy, formerly Mary
Keenan, quickly seconded that opinion.
A probe into the strangling death of the child beauty queen, whose body
was found in the basement of her parents' Boulder home Dec. 26, 1996,
remains under active investigation in Lacy's office.
A sample of unidentified male DNA from JonBenet's underwear, which does
not match any member of her family, has been entered into a national
DNA data base, to be checked regularly against other known offenders.
"Now that everybody knows the truth, where are all the public saying,
'We're sorry, we were wrong we crucified you,' " McLean asked. "She's
not as bitter, probably, as I am about it. But it's just something you
can't forgive."
tiny dancer
<eartha...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1114930130.5...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
I think it's very sad what the Ramsey's have gone through these past nine
years. Thanks for posting.
td
>
robbielynn
addreess..i looked it up once and could not find it.
jon...@evms.edu
robbielynn wrote:
> I wish I could send her a card...anyone know Lin Wood's
> addreess..i looked it up once and could not find it.
I'm surprised she's lasted as long as she has with this type of cancer.
EnEss
> I'm surprised she's lasted as long as she has with this type of cancer.
I know someone whose mom died a few years ago from breast cancer, after a
nearly 20-year battle w/ it. She went through 2 mastectomies, and many
rounds of chemo and radiation. She would go into remission and then relapse.
The cancer kept appearing places, and I seem to recall the woman had other
surgeries too. It's kind of a blur now. Anyway, no one could believe how
long she fought against the disease. I think this is extrememly unusual,
going by statistics, but it does happen from time to time.
NS
(add sbc before global to email)
