Laura Rohan shares story of losing her mom Marie to Breast Cancer
“Delays are heart breaking because you know things would’ve been different to some extent if delays didn’t exist.”
Laura Rohan’s mom, Marie, was nearly 56 when she passed in 2024 from cancer.
Laura, 25, from Ballybunion, Kerry, describes her mom as the “heart and soul of the community”. She was very involved with the school and volunteering, a photographer, and a social butterfly.
Marie started to experience back pain beginning in the summer of 2021. She went to her to her GP during this time, but due to her symptoms, she wasn’t referred for more tests related to cancer, in part because of Covid.
In November 2021, Marie was referred to more tests and was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer that had spread to six places across her body – in her breasts, pelvis, lungs, lymph nodes.
“What shocked our community the most, is that she got sick so quickly after she had been diagnosed. The community support was insane.”
After her diagnosis, Marie went into palliative care and drove to Cork for treatment to manage her pain.
“I’d rather her have quality of life over the time.”
"I didn’t want her to do the treatment if it was going to make her sicker.”
She recalls a time when her mom was sick, and she ordered matching pyjamas for Christmas for herself and Laura. Rather than ordering a few options for each of them, she ordered 6 pairs for herself and just one pair in Laura’s size. Laura says: “She had no recollection of ordering the pyjamas. It was just a little laugh.”
That Christmas in 2023 would be the last Christmas Laura would spend with her mom. Marie passed away in February 2024.
“I held her hand, kissed her forehead, told her she was the best mom, that I loved her, and she took her last breath. It was heart-breaking, but it was so peaceful.”
After she passed, Laura remembers that the light was coming into the room, the sun was coming in through the blinds, and there was a light halo over her mom’s head.
Since her mom’s passing, Laura has attended Irish Cancer Society-funded counselling services in her local cancer support centre Recovery Haven Kerry, Laura says she values the service. “It’s local, it feels more personal that I was seeing a person face to face,” she says.
Reflecting on her mom’s experience, Laura said her mom never had a mammogram, due to delays related to Covid. “Would my mom still be alive today, or would we have gotten more time with her, and would her pain have been managed better if she had been diagnosed sooner?
“My mom was almost 56 when she died. I don’t like the idea that people might only remember the last two years of her life. Her sickness and how she died doesn’t define the over 50 years of life she had and what she gave the community. Her sickness doesn’t define her."
“It’s hard enough for the family dealing with the grief and processing everything, I don’t want people just thinking of Marie Rohan that was sick. No, she’s Marie Rohan, the social butterfly of Ballybunion.”
