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A salon owner with incurable cervical cancer who lost her hair while having chemotherapy has said wearing wigs has given her “reassurance in a world where nothing is certain”, and she now sells handmade, customisable bespoke wigs to help others feel “confident” in their own skin. Amanda Humphrey, 43, who owns Saramanda1 hair salon in Great Denham, Bedfordshire, was diagnosed with cervical cancer in October 2017 after delaying her smear test by seven years. She underwent a radical hysterectomy in December that year – a surgical procedure to remove the womb and surrounding tissues – and was in remission weeks later. The cancer returned and Humphrey received her second cervical cancer diagnosis just two days before Christmas in 2021, and she then started chemotherapy and radiotherapy. She described this as “hell on Earth”, and within two weeks of starting chemotherapy the second time, she noticed her hair was being “blown out of [her] head” by the wind. Humphrey shaved her head and embraced her baldness but soon realised she missed having “that comfort blanket” – and she then searched “high and low” for a realistic, non-synthetic wig. Through her own searches, which were often fruitless, she realised that the number of people selling customisable wigs made of human hair in her area were few and far between. This led to Humphrey making and selling her own – and now, despite her uncertain prognosis, she said her mission is helping people struggling with hair loss feel like themselves again. “My message is I get it, and that’s why I love the wigs that we produce,” Humphrey told PA Real Life. “I’m proud of the wigs that we produce, and I’m so grateful that people choose us to be a part of their journey. “Every wig is made with love and strength, they are made from the heart, and me and my entire team, we all want them to be just perfect.” Cervical cancer is a cancer that is found anywhere in the cervix – the opening between the vagina and the womb. Symptoms include unusual vaginal bleeding, changes to vaginal discharge, pain during sex or pain in your lower back, the NHS says. Humphrey, who was working as a detective in London at the time and had only just opened her salon, said she had no symptoms prior to her diagnosis and “always found an excuse to cancel [her] smear test”. It was only when a colleague strongly encouraged her to book her smear test, seven years after she was first invited to have one, that she received her diagnosis in October 2017. She said she holds herself responsible for this and has since campaigned for other women to book their smear tests without delay by sharing the message “Don’t be me”. Speaking about her first diagnosis, she said: “I walked into the room and I looked at the consultant and, before I’d even sat down, I said ‘Have I got cancer?’ And he said ‘Yes’. “Then I said ‘Am I going to die?’ And he said, ‘I need to examine you and then I can tell you.’” Humphrey explained that telling her son, who she wishes to keep anonymous, was the hardest part, and she later underwent a radical hysterectomy, which was performed via keyhole surgery. A biopsy revealed she was in remission just weeks later, and while this was positive news she felt “lost” afterwards. She did not process the “trauma” of the cancer and the fact she could no longer get pregnant due to the radical hysterectomy until much later. “Emotionally I struggled because although I didn’t necessarily want more children, I wasn’t ready to to lose that option,” Humphrey explained. “I grieved not having more children, I grieved something I didn’t have, and I never sought help on that, ever. “Given it’s a gynaecological cancer as well, when I visit my local hospital for any appointment, I sit in a room with pregnant people waiting for their appointments. “They come out of their appointments happy, with their files and scan photos, and you’re sitting there, thinking ‘I can’t have that any more’.” In the years that followed, after Humphrey was medically retired from the police, she continued with cervical cancer awareness campaigns and focused on her salon. However, she started to experience agonising pain in her left leg in 2021 and could not pinpoint the exact source of it. After undergoing scans and tests, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer recurrence just two days before Christmas that year. She then underwent chemotherapy and radiotherapy, which caused her to experience sickness, muscle aches, nose bleeds and ulcers in her mouth. During her second round of chemotherapy she lost her hair within two weeks. “I remember saying to one of the nurses ‘The next time I see you in three weeks, will I have hair?’ And she just said ‘No’, and it was true,” Humphrey said. “I was stood outside my salon on week two and it was really windy and I was trying to make a phone call outside. “I said to my colleague ‘My hair is being blown out of my head’ – it was literally just floating past us – so we shaved it off.” Humphrey said she embraced being “bald and proud” initially, but she missed the “comfort” that having hair gave her – and so her journey to creating her own human hair wigs began. Each wig starts from approximately £450, depending on the length and thickness, and can take up to three weeks to make as Humphrey and her team at the salon custom-colour each one. Humphrey said she will often “work into the night” to finish an order, if required, and some customers have even cried when seeing the finished product. She has since partnered with Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust as well, and for every wig sold through the charity she will donate 10 per cent of the proceeds to the organisation. She explained: “Wearing wigs has given me so much reassurance in a world where nothing is certain. “Just having a wig on gives me that comfort and ability to just be normal, and I want to help others achieve that feeling.” In October 2022, Humphrey was informed her cancer is incurable and she will most likely not reach remission again – however she is determined to keep fighting. She is now having pembrolizumab – a type of immunotherapy – and has regular check-ups, and although she was told that statistically she may only have 18 months to live, she said she wants to “prove everyone wrong, even if (she dies) trying”, and she will not stop her “passion” of making wigs for others. “The results we get are amazing, they’re happy, and being able to support someone with part of their journey is so rewarding – it’s always something I’ve wanted to do,” she said. “It helps them feel confident, and the comfort comes in, but it’s just the fact they can walk out their front door feeling normal.” She added: “If my journey can help someone in the future, then I’m all in.” To find out more about Humphrey and the wigs she and her team make, search @saramanda1_wigs on Instagram. For more information and support about cervical cancer, visit Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust’s website here. 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The encounter, as recalled by E Jean Carroll, was friendly at first. Ms Carroll, then a magazine feature writer and TV host, bumped into Donald Trump in the upmarket New York department store Bergdorf Goodman. As Ms Carroll wrote in her 2019 memoir What Do We Need Men For?, he recognised her as “that advice lady”. She knew him as “that real-estate tycoon”. Mr Trump supposedly told her that he was there to buy a gift for “a girl”, and asked for help to choose an appropriate item. She placed the incident in either late 1995 or early 1996, when the future president was married to Marla Maples. The pair made their way to the lingerie section, where Mr Trump suggested that she try on a lace bodysuit. She claims she jokingly said that he should try it on instead. As they reached the dressing rooms, Ms Carroll alleges that Mr Trump shoved her against a wall, put his hands underneath her dress and pulled down her tights. He then unzipped his pants, and “forcing his fingers around my private area, thrusts his penis halfway — or completely, I’m not certain — inside me”, she wrote. A “colossal struggle” ensued, she said, and Ms Carroll eventually pushed him away and ran out of the dressing room. The episode was over in under three minutes, she wrote. After the allegations were first made in a book excerpt in New York magazine in June 2019, Mr Trump angrily denied it. "I've never met this person in my life. She is trying to sell a new book — that should indicate her motivation. It should be sold in the fiction section,” he said in an official White House statement that month. Then days later in an interview in the Oval Office with The Hill, Mr Trump went even further. “I’ll say it with great respect: Number one, she’s not my type. Number two, it never happened. It never happened, OK?” Ms Carroll then filed a defamation lawsuit against Mr Trump alleging he had damaged her reputation, substantially harmed her professionally, and caused emotional pain. After writing her Ask E Jean column for Elle magazine for nearly 30 years, the magazine terminated her contract abruptly in December of that year. The magazine denied it was related to Ms Carroll’s allegations. Months after Ms Carroll filed against Mr Trump, the Department of Justice intervened and transferred the case to federal court, arguing that he was immune from prosecution as president at the time of the initial defamation. But the federal court disagreed with the position of the DoJ and allowed discovery in the case to continue. And when the former president failed to have the case dismissed last October, he took to Truth Social to again unleash his denial, and unwittingly at the same time allowed Ms Carroll to file the new defamation claim. In 2022, New York passed the Adult Survivors Act which allowed adult sexual assault survivors one year to sue their alleged abusers. Ms Carroll filed a second lawsuit against Mr Trump for rape and for additional alleged defamatory statements made by him in October 2022 where he called her a “complete con job”. It is this second case for which court proceedings began on 25 April. In a court filing earlier this year, Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote that the central issue in both cases is the same — whether Mr Trump raped Ms Carroll. “If he did not, then Ms Carroll’s sexual assault claim ... and her libel claims in both cases likely would fail. “If he did, then little would remain in either case except perhaps a few minor issues related to Mr Trump’s statements and determination of damages.” Ms Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan said they tried for three years to obtain Mr Trump’s DNA sample to compare it with stains found on the dress she was wearing on the day. After refusing to provide a sample, Mr Trump’s attorneys then made an 11th-hour offer to do so earlier this year. Judge Kaplan rejected the offer. As the case is being tried in civil court, the jury will likely be asked to find whether there is “a preponderance of evidence” to prove Ms Carroll’s claims, rather than the criminal standard of “beyond reasonable doubt”. Over the course of the trial so far, Ms Carroll’s witnesses have included the columnist herself, friends who she spoke to about allegations at the time, mental health experts, and a few of the more than two dozen women who have accused Mr Trump of sexual assault. Ms Carroll took the stand on 26 April, testifying that she and Mr Trump were shopping around the department store at the time when he asked her to try on a piece of lingerie that he was looking to purchase – a blue bodysuit. “He was having a good time, and so was I,” Ms Carroll said, adding that the two were harmlessly flirting with one another. As the two reached the dressing room, Ms Carroll said Mr Trump “shut the door and shoved me up against the wall.” “I was confused. I laughed,” Ms Carroll said. She said she pushed Mr Trump back but he “thurst” her into the wall again. From there, Ms Carroll described how Mr Trump pulled down her tights and inserted his fingers into her vagina. “It was extremely painful,” Ms Carroll recalled emotionally. “It was a horrible feeling. He put his hand inside me and curled his finger. As I sit here today, I can still feel it.” When asked if she screamed for help or told Mr Trump to stop, Ms Carroll said, “I’m not a screamer. I’m a fighter.” Ms Carroll alleges Mr Trump then inserted his penis and began to rape her. “I wonder why I walked in there, to get in that situation... I’m proud to say I got out of there,” Ms Carroll. After the assault, Ms Carroll said she left the department store quickly and called her friend, Lisa Birnbach. Later on, Ms Carroll would tell Carol Martin, an anchorwoman at ABC, about the assault, but did not confide in many others. Ms Carroll said she felt “very stupid” for going into the dressing room. She described how the alleged rape left her “unable to ever have a romantic life again.” Later on, Ms Carroll elaborated on her inability to form and maintain romantic relationships saying that because she was allegedly raped by Mr Trump after flirting with him, it hindered her ability to engage with men. For the defence, Mr Trump’s attorneys initially included him, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, and several others on their list of potential witnesses. But on 3 May, his lawyers announced that they would not be presenting any witnesses – or a defence case. After the legal teams rested their cases on 4 May, Judge Lewis Kaplan gave Mr Trump until 5pm on 7 May to decide if he was going to testify in the trial. The judge’s comments came after Mr Trump said he would cut his golfing trip to Scotland and Ireland short to “confront” Ms Carroll, but the deadline passed without the Trump legal team filing a motion to include Mr Trump in the proceedings. Ariana Baio contributed to this report Read More Trump misses deadline to testify in E Jean Carroll trial – despite vowing to ‘confront’ case Trump news – live: Trump misses last chance to testify in E Jean Carroll trial as closing arguments begin Who is Natasha Stoynoff? The journalist whose testimony could help bring down Trump