Actress Shirley Hellyar passed away on Wednesday.
She was just 40 years old.
The Glasgow woman had spent months fighting a rare form of blood cancer called lymphoblastic lymphoma.
The cancer took shape in a 10cm tumour in her lungs – which she was told had significantly shrunk by September 4.
Thinking she was well on the road to recovery, the Scottish actress travelled to Newcastle to celebrate her birthday with some friends. There she began to experience chest pain. After being admitted into a local hospital, Shirley was told she had less than five weeks to live.
Needing desperate medical attention, Shirley had to stay in Newcastle. She was on her own, 200km away from her parents.
“I feel really cheated, things were going places and then I fell sick – it just doesn’t seem fair,” she said at the time.
“I still feel like this isn’t real, like I’m talking about someone else and maybe I need to do that to cope.
“All I have left is time and all you can do is make nice memories.”
Because her parents had already lost her brother when he was 16, Shirley extraordinarily decided to fundraise for her own funeral.
More than 300 people donated to the page which raised more than £7,000 ($12,500AUD) to help her parents cover the cost of the funeral.
On Wednesday, a statement was posted to the page, announcing that Shirley had passed away.
“This is a very sad message to let everyone know that Shirley unfortunately passed away in her sleep on Wednesday 7th November,” the statement began.
“Shirley was very grateful for everyone’s help and donations which made her last few weeks so much better.
“She said that all the help she has received restored her faith in human kindness.
“Thank you all once again.”
Before her death, Shirley starred as a villager alongside Chris Pine in Netflix’s new movie Outlaw King. Her final wish was that she would get to see the movie when it was released.
Unfortunately, Shirley passed away just two days before the movie came out.
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