Tables and backspace

I've been doing some editing in Microsoft Word 2003. I frequently use the
CTRL button to jump from word to word, and SHIFT to select text. While
editing, I hold down SHIFT and use CTRL to select several words, then I hit
delete to delete the words. When I do this in a table (I've had to edit
several hundred-page long text that is entirely in tables) I notice that,
after i do that, I can no longer use the backspace key to delete text, unless
I click in a new cell. Is there any way to fix this? It turns out that it is
very irritating and seriously affects my productivity when editing in tables.

Thanks!

Andrew