An Irish nurse has died in the US after travelling over earlier this summer for treatment as part of a clinical trial, RSVP reports.
Dubliner Ciara Barry was just 36 years old and battled cancer since the age of 13 when she was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma.
Ciara travelled to America in June to undergo treatment in a clinical trial for Car T- Cell Therapy at the Moffitt Cancer Centre in Florida, however she passed away at the cancer centre earlier this month.
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In her death notice on RIP.ie, Ciara’s family shared the news that she passed away on Saturday August 13th “surrounded by her family after a long and brave battle with cancer”.
The notice said Ciara is deeply missed by her “loving husband Patrick, father Pat (P.J.), sisters Laura, Aveen, Claire, Ellen and brother Patrick, mother-in-law Anne, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, and adoring nieces, nephews, relatives and her many friends who all provided incredible support to Ciara and her family in her journey to Florida”.
Back in April, Ciara’s sister, Claire Lynch told RSVP Live that she started feeling ill around Christmas 2020, right before Ciara was set to undergo IVF treatment to start a family with her husband Patrick.
“She started to feel quite sick again as she got to the stage where all the treatment over the years caused toxicity because of getting chemotherapy and radiation since she was a child.
“She was in a very lovely and exciting time as she was undergoing IVF treatment and a few months before she was set to have an egg implanted, she started feeling unwell.
“She was feeling sick and nauseated, her legs were swelling and she just felt that something was really amiss.
“After going to the doctor to get her blood done, they spotted abnormalities in her blood and advised her to link up with a haematologist at St. James’s Hospital.”
Ciara went through a series of other tests and did a bone marrow biopsy which led to her being diagnosed with treatment-related High Risk Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS), an aggressive blood cancer in January 2021.
“A lot of people would get it in their 70s and 80s but because she had such intense treatment at a very young age, it hit her now and she was 35 when it happened.
“She was given a year-and-a-half to survive and we’re at that time frame now in the summertime.”
Her sister explained that doctors exhausted all the treatment options with the original plan for Ciara to “hit it hard” with chemotherapy and then get a bone marrow transplant. However, her condition deteriorated to the point where the transplant was no longer a viable option.
Her family looked for different treatment options in other countries and found one suitable in Florida.
“She was really, really lucky to get on it as there’s only 88 people on it from around the world.
“She feels quite blessed just to be given a little bit of a chance. She’s such a fighter and a determined person.
“She’s beaten the odds before. There were several times over the years that we would have been told that she wasn’t going to pull through and she’s always managed to prove them all wrong.
“She would always laugh that she’s more resilient than she looks on paper.”
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