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go public with her baldness and courageously unveiled her new appearance, alongside a moving piece written in the News of the World by her former CBB housemate, journalist Carole Malone. Carole wrote: ‘I tell her she looks lovely and she laughs nervously: “Do I really?” It’s bad enough that this disease can kill you, but it eats away at your confidence, your looks and your sexuality as well.’

      With searing honesty, Jade told the News of the World: ‘I’ve lost my hair, chucked up every single night. I’m on four bags of medication, and I can’t even walk upstairs anymore,’ before adding, ‘I’ve been through so much without Jack and I’m nervous that when he comes out he won’t be able to handle it.’

      But when the time came to show her boyfriend Jack what she looked like without hair, Jade was as matter of fact as ever. ‘I let him have a little peek at my bald head and he welled up,’ she recalled. ‘He told me it was the first time I have actually looked ill. No matter what kind of bloke you are with, every woman wants their man to fancy them. And of course, that worries me. I think “There’s no way he’s going to fancy me like this, no way!”’

      Jack later said, ‘It was a shock. I just wanted to hold her and make sure she was alright. But she’s always the same Jade, just with no hair. It still feels the same when I kiss her, I still fancy her. There’s nothing different.’

      Much to their delight it was reported that Jack was set for early release, but Jade still insisted he continued to keep up appearances with her little boys. She told a newspaper, ‘He’s been on the phone to them from prison pretending he’s in Africa fighting lions and tigers. He doesn’t care that there are seven lags behind him in the queue taking the mickey. He does sweet things for the boys – and me. On Mother’s Day he buys presents for me and says they’re from them. Their own dad has never even done that.’

      On the prospect of seeing him again, Jade said, ‘We’re both going through the hardest times of our lives, but we’re doing it on our own. So if this doesn’t make us stronger and work as a couple, nothing will. Maybe we’ll be like Angelina and Brad!’

      Determined not to let her illness get the better of her, in January 2009 Jade took her mum Jackiey and sons Bobby and Freddy for a short break in the sunshine before her chemotherapy sessions resumed. But while she managed a smile, self-conscious Jade, who usually wears a bikini on holiday, covered up in a swimsuit and Fifties-style swimming hat to cover her bald head. When her mum spoke out about her feelings in a Sunday newspaper, the distress of Jade’s illness seemed all the more real. Tearful Jackiey broke down and said: ‘Please don’t let her die’, sobbing that when she looked at Jade, she wondered how she became so brave. ‘She’s like a tigress protecting her babies,’ she told the People newspaper. ‘She’s fighting this cancer so hard because she doesn’t want to leave those two little boys.’

      On 28th January 2009 Jade finally received some good news – Jack Tweed was released from prison and their passionate reunion was watched gleefully by the nation’s press. Speaking excitedly afterwards she said: ‘It was fantastic to see Jack. We went straight to Toys R Us and Jack bought a monkey for Freddy and a crocodile for Bobby – the animals he told the boys he’s been looking after in Africa – then we picked them up from school together. They were so pleased to see him!’

      Sadly, the couple’s reunion was to be short-lived – as a condition of his early release, Jack was tagged and required to stay at home with his mother after 7p.m. Not before topping up his tan first, though. ‘He spent his first full day out of jail at a tanning shop’, laughed Jade.

      And for Jade, things were to get increasingly worse. After suffering extreme pain in her bowel, on February 3rd 2009 the 27-year-old was rushed to hospital in an attempt to ease the pain. It was then that doctors delivered the devastating news that her cervical cancer had spread and was now incurable. Jade said later: ‘I couldn’t breathe when they told me. I just screamed and cried and said, “Can’t anyone do anything to help me!” Because a few weeks ago when they first told me the chemo hadn’t worked they said it didn’t have to be the end. I know they’ve done everything they can to help me and I’m grateful. But I really thought I might be OK.’

      In an interview a few weeks after the news, Jade touchingly described about how Jack took the prognosis. ‘He was just sobbing; we laid on the bed together. He said he couldn’t believe it and that he would find all these remedies for me. He’s been on the computer ever since looking for all these medicines I can take. But I don’t want them. He even wanted me to go to America to take them but I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to spend too much time away from Jack and my children. If the treatment out there didn’t work and I died I’d have lost that time.’

      Her mum Jackiey told reporters: ‘No mum wants to bury her daughter and I’m determined it’s not going to happen. Jade and I are praying for a miracle.’

      It wasn’t quite the proposal he’d planned (Jade said, ‘When I visited Jack in jail he’d told me he had a fantastic idea for a way to propose. He said he wanted to take me to the seven wonders of the world and ask me to marry him at each of them’) but on the eve of Valentine’s Day, Jack Tweed popped the question to his girlfriend at her hospital bedside. A day later, they exchanged rings by the Thames in London. Jack got down on one knee, as his frail fiancée looked on happily from her wheelchair. Jade told friends, ‘I was over the moon. I love Jack with all my heart and I want to be his wife more than anything in the world. And I will be. He’s devastated but he’s really trying to hold it together for me. But as soon as he found out I was going to die he just said, “Right then, we’re getting married. You’re a special woman, I love you and I would be honoured to call you my wife. And I don’t care if it’s just for a few weeks.”’

      In spite of her weak condition, Jade’s wedding dress was now her top priority. On Sunday 15th February 2009 a gaunt but happy Jade Goody – her fiance Jack devotedly pushing her in her wheelchair – visited Harrods in London’s Knightsbridge where she found what she described as ‘the most beautiful dress.’ The gown – a cream and ivory exclusive Uranio dress from the Pronovias 2009 collection by Manuel Mota – was made of silk mikado and had a classic design with a high neckline, a V-back and a full skirt with box pleating. On hearing that Jade was in his store, Harrods boss Mohamed Al Fayed announced, ‘That’s my wedding present to you two.’

      Wasting no time, Jade summoned her five closest friends to her bedside to plan the wedding she’d always wanted. Jade’s best friend Kate Jackson recalled: ‘Jade said to us: “I’m getting married and I want you to be bridesmaids”. Then she started flinging out random orders about what we had to do for the preparations.’ Kate told the Mirror: ‘Jade always says “Don’t worry, everything will be all right”. Some days she is in incredible pain, but her first thought is to comfort others. There are so many people who want to see her but whenever they break down she just tries to make them feel better.’

      Jade said: ‘I’m so looking forward to being a bride. And I want to walk towards my groom, just like any other young woman would on what is meant to be the best day of their lives.’ With that, the Goody/Tweed wedding machine was in full motion. Undeterred by her illness, Jade spent the next few days sending out instructions from her hospital bed, using her laptop to ensure everything was going to be perfect, right down to the last detail.

      Husband-to-be Jack spoke publicly for the first time about her condition and quietly remarked: ‘I would chop both my arms off just to make her okay again.’ Jade, as usual, continued to try and make light of her situation. ‘The operation has left me with a massive scar,’ she told readers of one magazine. ‘It goes from my lady bits, right up to my bra. It makes me look like I’ve got two belly buttons!’

      The media was in overdrive anticipating what was to be the most talked about wedding of the decade. Jade’s story had touched even the coldest of hearts – and ironically, in her final few weeks, she became more famous than she could ever have imagined. US talk show hosts Oprah Winfrey and Larry King began a bidding war for Jade’s first overseas interview, while newspapers, magazines and TV companies in the UK threw thousands of pounds into the pot

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