About this particular posting: As a testament to Audrey’s achievements and legacy, I have decided to create a thread solely on examining the cause of her untimely death. Many people do not know or understand cancer of the appendix and many people have not researched for the cause. Some people have even assumed that Audrey died from lung cancer which is terribly incorrect. 

The more I learn about her condition and what caused her death at the mere age of 65 (though to her she felt and had said she lived a fulfilled life), I will continually update this thread/blog post so that you too, my audience may be just as educated as I.

Now I have long since done research on her condition but it has been awhile since I articulated such in any given integrated research paper. So bare with me as I venture on this journey to discover new things and rediscover things I had already learned once before. 

The First Source: The Fairest of All by Jocelyn Selim

This link here has one of the most well written, informative stories about Audrey’s passing. From how the cancer developed, to all the correct technical terms. It is worth a look if you are interested in finding out about the type of cancer Audrey had as well as how it possibly could have developed. 

Excerpts from the above article:
The Fairest of All by Jocelyn Selim

 ”Images of Hepburn attending to dying children as a goodwill ambassador were more than haunting - her thin fragile frame echoed those of the emaciated children with whom she was photographed, while her large doelike eyes seemed to demand that people who could help must refuse to accept the unacceptable. She was aware of her effect, and that her iconic style meant that people wanted to emulate her.”

“She often said she was glad she hadn’t used up her image and people still wanted to see it,” recalls her elder son, Sean Hepburn Ferrer. 

It wasn’t easy work and on the way back from a sobering trip to Somalia at the end of September 1992, Hepburn began to have crippling abdominal pain.” 

“After a round of routine tests at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles revealed no cause for her pain, Hepburn’s physicians recommended laparoscopy - a procedure in which doctors insert a camera through a tiny incision in the abdomen. The exam found a tissue-paper-thin tumor encasing the last segment of her small intestine and the beginning of her large intestine; the medical team determined that the cancer had metastasized from her appendix.” 

“Hepburn’s cancer was adenocarcinoma. The tumor was strangling her intestines, creating an obstruction that was causing the intense pain she felt. There is no official staging system to describe the spread of most appendix cancers, but because the tumor had invaded Hepburn’s abdomen and peritoneum - the thin layer covering and lines the organs and separates the abdominal cavity from the rest of the body - her cancer would have been considered advanced by any standard.” 

“Hepburn called the disease “abominable” - rather than “abdominal” - cancer, recalls Ferrer.”

To read on please view The Fairest Of All.   


more to come.