Mum, 25, diagnosed with stage 4 skin cancer is given one year to live
A young mother given one year to live after being diagnosed with an incurable form of skin cancer says her only wish is to make precious memories for her beloved son.
Meabh Feerick, 25, was busy raising three-year-old Noah in Homebush, in Sydney's inner-west, when her world was shattered by a small lump on the back of her scalp.
The bar manager from Mayo, west Ireland, said she saw a doctor about the growth 'at least five or six times' over the past two years, but was repeatedly assured it was nothing more than a wart or cyst, despite it growing and becoming painful to touch.
Unconvinced by their dismissals, Ms Feerick pushed for further testing and was devastated to discover her suspicions had been correct when a biopsy in late November revealed the lump to be stage four melanoma. Her condition is incurable.
Ms Feerick, who is preparing to return home to Ireland to bring Noah back to her family, said she has been writing letters to her son from her hospital bed so he will remember who his mother was.
'I have a child and I have so much to be here for. It's not good enough and I have been angry, but it's out of my control,' she told Daily Mail Australia.
'I've been writing letters to him while I'm up in the hospital so he can know his mam.
'I'm just trying to embrace the time I have left without being conscious that I'm on a deadline.'
In the months before her diagnosis, Ms Feerick said she felt the lump grow bigger and began to experience a 'dull ache' in that area of her head.
A few mornings, she said she woke to find blood splattered on her pillow, but otherwise felt fit and healthy.
It wasn't until she insisted on having the growth removed by a dermatologist that the reality of her condition was revealed.
A series of scans and a surgery in early December showed cancer had spread into the skull, lymph nodes and almost every bone of Ms Feerick's body, causing lesions so severe that her hip fractured one night while she slept.
'I was taken aback because I'd been repeatedly reassured it was nothing serious,' she said of her diagnosis.
'Two years of going to the doctors, and they kept telling me it was nothing.'
Reference: Alice Murphy For Daily Mail Australia
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