My beloved sister Yasmeen has passed away on the 29 of August aged 27. Yasmeen had an agonising 6 year battle with a rare bone cancer called Ewing’s sarcoma. During this time, she had a limp salvage surgery, spent 3 years in chemotherapy, radiotherapy and participated in 2 clinical trials. We were optimistic with the last clinical trial but it didn’t work out. On a more positive note, she also got married and had a beautiful boy in between treatments. Her son is now 18 months old.

Yasmeen was simply the most selfless, kind and brave person I have ever known. For those that didn’t know her, I would like to share with you a short painful story that shows how selfless she was. In her last 3 days, she was paralysed and her voice was very hard to hear, yet she was so hospitable to everyone who visited her in hospital. Hours before she passed away she went into shock and was trying so hard to tell us something that we thought was very important.  We couldn’t tell at all what was she trying so hard to tell us, as her body was shaking uncontrollably. Miraculously she then became completely fine for few minutes, the pain was gone and her voice was much more audible. To our surprise It turned out she was reminding everyone in the room to drink before sunrise as it was Ramadan and people were fasting, that is simply how selfless she was. Even while she was dying, she was concerned about everyone elese. She then fell into coma and passed away peacefully in her sleep. She didn’t cry or complain once and faced certain death with so much dignity and courage, she truly was one of a kind.

 

Yasmeen was treated in UCL hospital, the hospital offered her outstanding treatment and the medical team was superb and extremely kind to Yasmeen. This hospital specialises in finding new treatments for the disease that took Yasmeen from us and it is where Yasmeen spent two years of her life so it is only fair that we pay our tribute to Yasmeen by raising money to find better cures for this terrible illness.

 

Sherif