Mandy Kaminskas of Swansea, UK, has mesothelioma and has been told she has just weeks to live. Her disease was caused by exposure to asbestos through close contact to her father, a construction worker. As as a young girl, Mandy would would cuddle up to her dad when he returned home, his clothes covered in asbestos dust.
“My dad worked with asbestos and I’ve got this illness because of the close contact I had with him when I was young,” she said.
Ms. Kaminskas, 47, will leave behind two daughters and a new husband.
Mesothelioma most often affects the lining of the lungs and about nine out of 10 cases are linked to exposure to asbestos.
“People are surprised when they hear how I contracted this disease,” says Ms. Kaminskas.
“But there are many other people in similar positions who have received secondary exposure. I want people to know what having this cancer really means and how dangerous secondary exposure is. Telling my two daughters I am dying was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do. I wouldn’t wish that experience on my worst enemy. Looking into your child’s eyes, and telling them you won’t be around, is unbelievably hard.”
Ms. Kaminskas, was awarded an undisclosed sum by her father’s former employers and recently remarried her first husband Ray in a ceremony at the hospice where she is being treated.
“Ray asked me to move back in with him and he became my main carer. A couple of weeks ago, I became very ill again, and doctors told me they didn’t think I had long left. “I said to Ray: “How do you fancy making an honest woman of me?” He said yes and we were married at the hospice. It was the best day of my life.”
Ms. Kaminskas is one of five children but she is the only one to have been diagnosed with mesothelioma.
Although the use of asbestos was banned in the UK in 1999, it is predicted that 65,000 people will develop mesothelioma as a result of previous exposure.
