A TOWN has rallied behind a terminally ill Irish woman with €50,000 raised for her treatment in just one week. Beauty therapist Tracey Taaffe, 44, from Monasterboice, outside Drogheda in Co Louth , had got her life back on track following a breast cancer diagnosis in 2021. But after experiencing back and shoulder pain earlier this year, scans confirmed her worst fears.
The disease has spread to her liver, lungs and sternum, with doctors giving her a life expectancy of three-five years. Her daughter Lea, 25, says the nightmare has awoken a steely determination in her mum to fight on – a resolve matched by family, friends and anonymous donors who donated €30,000 to a GoFundMe page in the first 24 hours. The total now stands at over €52,000, which will be used for Tracey’s future medical bills, further treatment options and to ease the financial burden on the family.
Lea said: “She says ‘we need to get over five years, we’ll try to make the most of what is there. “Given the circumstances, I don’t know how she puts a smile on her face every day.” After her initial cancer diagnosis three years ago, Tracey underwent 12 gruelling rounds of chemotherapy and 20 rounds of radiation treatment, but her battle was only beginning.
Lea said that when her mum began to feel unwell again in April, she booked a GP appointment, expecting to be back at work later that day. But Tracey, husband Alan, Lea and son Rhys, 18, were forced to confront the disease’s return in a muc.