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Widow's desperate bid to find cure for male breast cancer

Rare illness: John and Jo Tridgell with daughters Phoebe, five, and Florence, three, on their fifth wedding anniversary in 2015
Rare illness: John and Jo Tridgell with daughters Phoebe, five, and Florence, three, on their fifth wedding anniversary in 2015

A young mother today told how she lost her husband to male breast cancer as she appealed for funds to help find a cure for the rare disease.

John Tridgell, 43, a father of two girls, died on January 11, little more than a year from being diagnosed. He deteriorated suddenly two days after Christmas as the cancer spread to his brain.

A memorial appeal by his wife Jo, 39, to help fund the world’s biggest study into male breast cancer at the Institute of Cancer Research reached its £5,000 target in a day.

It has now raised more than £22,000.

Mrs Tridgell, a TV producer on Strictly Come Dancing’s sister show It Takes Two, told the Standard: “What are the chances of being widowed at 39?

“I wouldn’t have expected it to happen to me, but it did. It can happen to anyone.

"It can happen at any time. Any money raised is for everyone’s benefit.

"We still don’t know why some men get it.”

Mr Tridgell, a marketing manager for LinkedIn, was diagnosed in November 2015 after visiting his GP, concerned he had pulled a chest muscle at the gym.

He was a non-smoker and ran half-marathons.

Mr Tridgell had received treatment for melanoma skin cancer a decade earlier but the cause of his breast cancer remains a mystery.

The couple, whose daughters Phoebe and Florence are five and three, moved into their Teddington home on the day he had a CT scan.

Mrs Tridgell said: “John was such a healthy-feeling person, really successful at work. He had been there for a year and was set to be promoted. We bought a ‘do-er upper’ house for life.

“He had the day off work to move but was having his CT scan instead. I moved house with my dad. That was the Friday. On the Monday we were told he had terminal cancer.”

Mr Tridgell continued to take part in a trial of an immunotherapy drug at the Royal Marsden even when he was placed in the “control” group offered the standard chemotherapy.

He was also involved in the ICR study, which since 2007 has investigated the genetic, lifestyle and environmental factors that increase breast cancer risk in men.

About 400 men are diagnosed with it in the UK each year and about 80 are thought to die.

The disease is possibly more aggressive than female breast cancer, although this may be due to later diagnosis.

“He has contributed an awful lot to studies that will be ongoing past his death,” Mrs Tridgell said.

“It seems very wrong that for male breast cancer, the standard treatment is the same as for female breast cancer.

“We need to find out what is causing it. John was endlessly positive before all of this, and through all of this.

“Though we had been told there was no cure and it was all about management, we refused to accept that. We tried everything.”

Donate at: justgiving.com/crowdfunding/make-john-proud