Rachel Gorry opens up on final days with late husband

She was promoting the Boots Night Walk

Gorry married her childhood sweetheart, Daniel in June 2012 and went on to have three daughters with him – Leah, Holly and Hannah.

In 2018, Daniel was diagnosed with cancer and lost his fight with the illness on April 1, 2020 at just 29 years old.

Gorry opened up about his battle on Ireland AM on Thursday morning.

She shared how the family were on holiday when her husband started suffering with acid reflux and stomach pain, but they initially thought it was a gut infection.

However, on the second day of the holiday, he began passing blood. She recalls: “We were straight into hospital and he needed a blood transfusion. They put the camera down and they said: ‘We see a tumour. You’ve got cancer but we can’t take a biopsy because we need to stop the bleeding or you’ll die if we don’t.’

“He’d to stay there for eight days. He got two blood transfusions then they let us go home and Daniel was diagnosed with cancer [in hospital in Ireland].”

Gorry said he was ‘amazing’ during his battle with the illness and shared how they ‘made so many memories’.

She said: “It wasn’t all doom and gloom, and I know that sounds strange because he was terminal [and] dying but we had good times and good memories and he had a great sense of humour around the fact that he was going to die.

“Obviously there were bad days, but we made the most of the time we had left.”

She also spoke about the ‘difficult’ conversation she had to have with her daughters as she told them their father was dying.

She said: “They couldn’t understand if daddy gets medicine, they said how come he’s not getting better if he is getting medicine.”

She revealed her children had attended therapy and how that had helped them understand better.

She said: “They filled a room full of bubbles, and they gave them a sword and said now, the bubbles are all daddy’s cancer cells.

“You have to get the sword, and you have to get all the bubbles. They had a timer, and they couldn’t get the bubbles in time.”

Gorry was on the Virgin Media breakfast show promoting the Boots Night Walk, which takes place September 10, in aid of the Irish Cancer Society.

The charity provides a night nursing service to allow cancer patients to receive medical care from their own homes.

Gorry shared her own experiences with the charity. She said: “Daniel wanted to pass away at home with me and our three children.”

This wish was only possible thanks to the Irish Cancer Society Night Nursing service.