Recurrence of cancer "has taken a great toll"

<p>Patsy Ramsey is undergoing outpatient chemotherapy in a fourth occurence of ovarian cancer, and friends fear she is losing the fight, the Rocky Mountain News reported Saturday.</p><p>The newspaper said Ramsey, mother of slain child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey, is staying at the Roswell, Ga., home of her father, Don Paugh, as she battles the disease.</p><p>"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."</p><p>"I know that the treatment is taking a lot out of her," said John Haggard, a prominent Charlevoix, Mich., businessman and family friend.</p><p>"What she has is grave," said Jan Boss, education director at the Community Reform Church of Charlevoix. The Ramseys have been attending the church for several years since settling fulltime in Charlevoix.</p><p>Linda McLean, who coached Ramsey when she competed as Miss West Virginia in the 1977 Miss America pageant, said Ramsey has stage-IV cancer,</p><p>"My husband died of stage-IV cancer," said McLean.</p><p>"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."</p><p>Six-year-old JonBenet was found beaten and strangled in her parents' Boulder basement on Dec. 26, 1996. A grand jury investigation ended with no indictments, and no arrests have been made.</p><p>Boulder police said early on that John Ramsey and his wife, Patsy, were under an "umbrella of suspicion." However, when U.S. District Judge Julie Carnes in Atlanta dismissed a separate libel and slander lawsuit against the Ramseys in 2003, she said evidence she reviewed in that case suggested an intruder killed JonBenet.</p>

http://accesswdun.com/article/2005/4/146745