Cancer blogger Anna Swabey dies day before wedding Published duration 16 September 2016

media caption Cancer bride dies a day before wedding

A woman who blogged about her battle with terminal brain cancer has died a day before she was due to get married.

Anna Swabey, 25, from Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, was initially given three months to live in 2015 when she met Andy Bell, 26, on a dating app.

The pair were due to marry on Saturday in the Yorkshire Dales, but Miss Swabey passed away earlier.

She raised almost £80,000 for Brain Tumour Research and posted frank videos about her chemotherapy sessions.

Her sister Victoria described Miss Swabey as "one of life's truly inspiring and incredible human beings."

Charity spokeswoman Wendy Fulcher added that a "light had gone out."

Months after her diagnosis Miss Swabey started a blog, Inside my Head , in which she openly chronicled her treatment.

However, the latest blog post was from her sister Victoria, who described the moment doctors revealed the cancer had worsened and that surgeons had removed an "apple-sized" mass.

image caption Miss Swabey was angry and frustrated at her diagnosis but determined to live life to the full

"Anna's call was matter of fact and to the point. Her biopsy results showed that the tumour had now progressed to a Grade 4. In all honesty, and in typical Anna style, she was more bothered about how we all felt than what it meant for her."

Ms Fulcher described Miss Swabey as "bright, vivacious, kind, and beautiful."

She added: "Anna was one of those to whom others are naturally drawn.

"She had a great sense of fun and a marvellous joie de vivre.

"Anna was just 23 when she was told she had a brain tumour. Understandably devastated and angry, she nevertheless held her head up high and decided she would live her life, however long it might be, to the full."

In her last blog post on 8 July, Miss Swabey spoke of how unwell chemotherapy had left her, but how she had been lifted by her hen party in York.

She said: "I'm getting pretty fed up of feeling poorly all the time now. But I don't think it was really helped because I had my hen party two weekends ago, which was amazing."

image copyright Brain Tumour Research image caption Miss Swabey set herself a target of £100,000 to raise money for Brain Tumour Research after being diagnosed in January 2015

Ms Fulcher said Miss Swabey was given hope by neurosurgeon Kevin O'Neill, who leads the Brain Tumour Research Centre of Excellence at Imperial College.

"She left her first consultation with him in "tears of happiness" not because he had changed her diagnosis but because they would fight "Trev", as she dubbed the growth in her brain, together," Ms Fulcher said.

'Beautiful girl'

But after her condition worsened she and Mr Bell were forced to postpone their wedding.

Ms Fulcher said brain cancer was particularly cruel because it killed more children and people under 40 than any other form of the disease, but received just 1% of national, research funding.

Concluding her blog post Miss Swabey's sister said: "She [Anna] has faced her illness with positivity, dignity and absolute defiance, and we couldn't be more proud of our beautiful girl and the way she has touched so many people with her amazing attitude to life, love and the whole heap of crap she has had to contend with since the arrival of Trev!!

"We have all taken our cue from Anna throughout her illness and we will continue to do so through the most heart-breaking and difficult time of our lives."