‘I think Keith thought I was a goner’: Rolling Stones guitarist’s wife reveals her secret battle with cancer

‘I think Keith thought I was a goner’: Rolling Stones guitarist’s wife reveals her secret battle with cancer

The wife of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards has told how she has fought a secret cancer battle.

Former model Patti Hansen, 54, revealed how one doctor had told her she had three years to live after being diagnosed with a tumour in 2007.

She said the ordeal was one of the most difficult of the Stone’s life: ‘I think Keith thought I was a goner. He’s a pretty positive guy, but when you say cancer to people it’s just like a death sentence.’

Cancer battle: Keith Richards with wife Patti Hansen last week. She revealed in an interview today haw she has secretly been fighting bladder cancer

Miss Hansen, who married Richards, 66, in 1983, has decided to speak publicly about her illness and successful treatment to raise awareness of bladder cancer.

The disease is typically associated with men but an increasing number of women are suffering from it.

She said: ‘It’s not something people talk about. When I found out that I had it, I thought, “Oh, my God, this is an old man’s disease”.

Success: Following complicated surgery and a course of chemotherapy Hansen is now in good health

‘You’re sitting there with all these men with prostate problems. And all the information I was getting was for men.

‘They have really got to move this forward for women, because now they are seeing more and more women with bladder cancer.’

Miss Hansen spoke candidly in the new U.S. edition of Vogue magazine.

She said she had chemotherapy followed by complicated surgery that involved a hysterectomy and the removal of her appendix, bladder removal and the construction of a ‘neobladder’, built from her intestine.

‘The chemo is really horrible,’ she added. ‘It’s so debilitating, so depressing.

‘You have to go get yourself plugged in every week, and you sit there and you think, “My God, I take such good care of myself. I’m so organic. I can’t believe I’m putting this poison in me”.

‘Cancer is such a monster. It’s radical… I was like, “Get that ****er out”.’

Referring to former Charlie’s Angels actress who died last year from liver cancer, Miss Hansen said: ‘You look at the beautiful Farrah Fawcett: What was she waiting for?

‘Just get that monster out of your body.’

Jane Rose, Richards’ manager and one of the couple’s closest friends, told how the treatment was successful.

Miss Rose said: ‘They were able to contain it, and she was up and walking around that hospital floor before you knew it.

‘Her scar became the sexiest thing in the world.’

Miss Hansen calls her new bladder ‘bionic’, commenting: ‘I don’t need to ever do those diaper ads. It’s better than the real thing.’

Battle: Keith Richards and Patti Hansen pictured right in 1988, five years after they were married, and, left, in 2008 a year after the diagnosis

However, Miss Hansen’s ordeal also took its toll on Richards and the couple’s daughters Theodora, 25, and Alexandra, 23, who are both models.

At the time, Richards was still recovering from his near-fatal fall from a tree while in Fiji which saw him being taken to New Zealand for treatment.

As a result of the accident, the musician was unable to drive his wife to hospital appointments.

Alexandra said: ‘He couldn’t actually be there the way he wanted to. I’m not going to say he didn’t handle it the right way, because we all go into shock, but he didn’t handle it well at all.

‘It wasn’t a good time for any of us.’

She added: ‘This was a completely vulnerable experience for him.

‘I’ll never be able to get into what his mind-set was, but I know that it was probably one of the hardest things he’s had to go through.’

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