CELEBRITY NEWS ---'She was my world, my rock, my best friend and my wife': Husband pays heartbreaking tribute to Lisa, 33, who lost five-year cancer battle that prompted her to write an inspirational blog for others

A journalist and writer who was diagnosed with breast cancer at just 28 has died at the age of 33.

Lisa Lynch, a magazine editor, died after the disease spread to her bones and brain.

Shortly after her diagnosis in 2008 Mrs Lynch started writing a blog, Alright Tit, which became so popular that it was turned into a book – The C-Word.
Mrs Lynch, who was born and brought up in Derby, chronicled her battle with the disease in her witty and honest blog which received 140,000 hits in the first year alone.

Lisa married Peter Lynch in December 2006 and was diagnosed with cancer just 18 months later after her husband found a lump in her breast

Lisa and Peter are pictured on holiday in May 2008, just before she was found to have a grade three tumour

She dubbed the cancer The Bullshit and took to ‘writing while fighting’ as a way of coping.

Mrs Lynch, from south-west London is survived by her husband of six years, Peter Lynch, who announced her death on the blog.
He wrote: ‘I've been batting some words around in my head for the last two days searching for poetic prose to do justice to my world, my rock, my best friend, my lover and my wife. Alas, there will never be an easy way in which to tell you all that Lisa passed away very peacefully on Monday, March 11th, 2013.
‘In a way that only Lisa could pull off, she left us in exactly the way she had planned. The plan was to be at Trinity Hospice with her husband and parents. The plan was that we would be overlooking the beautiful gardens. The plan was that it would also be peaceful, beautiful, tranquil and pain free.

‘I probably don't need to tell you that Lisa ticked all of those boxes (what can I say? Some people are just so damn talented that they can plan for any eventuality).
‘We, her family and closest friends, feel complete and utter devastation that is matched only by resounding pride that she was, and will forever be, our girl.

‘For us, it's a time to privately shed tears and to reflect on what she meant and will continue to mean to us. Lisa, I love you with a passion that burns as brightly as you did. Your light will never ever go out.’

Lisa Lynch, 33, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008 when she was just 28-years-old

Mrs Lynch turned to writing a blog - Alright Tit - as a way of coping with her cancer

Mrs Lynch was diagnosed with a five centimetre tumour in her breast after her husband noticed a lump just 18 months after they were married.

It was an aggressive grade three tumour that had spread to 24 of her 25 lymph nodes.

She underwent a mastectomy followed by chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

It is believed that the growth of the cancer may have been encouraged by pregnancy hormones as Mrs Lynch suffered two miscarriages before her diagnosis.

She wrote: ‘On the outside, my husband Pete and I are a professional couple with mortgage protection and one eye on our Air Miles.

Happier times: Lisa and Peter on holiday in South Africa with Lisa's parents, Jane and Ian

‘Behind closed doors, however, we draw on one another’s foreheads and tickle each other until we can’t breathe for laughing.

‘It was during one such tickle fight that I knew something was wrong. In a playful boob-grab, Pete felt something unusual. That is when the fun stopped and my cancer journey began.’

She continued: ‘Inside the hospital I’d had a biopsy and a mammogram. I remembered the specialist pointing to a cloudy area on the scan and uttering the words “breast cancer”.

‘The rest had been white noise. After we’d been led out of the room we both cried, but the kind of crying that comes without tears. Frozen-to-your-core, terrified crying.

‘Then Pete had stared at his BlackBerry and looked at me with yet another level of terror in his eyes. “Your mum and dad – I’ve missed a ton of calls.'

Mrs Lynch had chemotherapy after she was initially diagnosed with breast cancer - she is pictured (left) in January 2009 and (right) in March 2009

We’d been in the hospital for almost four hours and they’d been calling the entire time. “We’ll have to speak to them,” I said. So we did; well, Pete did.

‘I retched at the thought of Pete’s words bringing the news that no parent can prepare themselves for – that despite the fact we had zero family history of breast cancer, I, at 28, had a firm diagnosis.’

In June 2009, after a year of intensive treatment, she was told that her mammogram was clear and she prepared to get on with her life, cancer-free.

However, in September 2011 the cancer returned and Mrs Lynch and her family were told that it was terminal.

She was informed that the cancer would now have to be managed, as opposed to cured, but that she could still have years to live.

In June 2009, after a year of treatment, Mrs Lynch was told that her cancer had gone. She and Mr Lynch are pictured with friends at Glastonbury after receiving the good news

In October 2009 Mr and Mrs Lynch were enjoying a break from the cancer treatment. They are pictured on holiday with Mrs Lynch's brother Jamie and his wife Leanne

Mrs Lynch recorded the devastating news in her blog: ‘So here it is: my cancer has returned. Not as a localised recurrence, but a distant spread.
It’s now grade 4 (as we know, there is no grade 5) which is also known as a secondary cancer or, to be blunt, a cancer which cannot be cured.

‘The spread is to my bones: not just in my back, as was first my suspicion, but everywhere, in the form of dot-like tumours (worst in my spine, hips, shoulders, ribs, clavicles, sternum).

‘All of which explains the increasing pain I’ve been in recently whose severity I have, for longer than I care to admit, been denying to those around me – most of all me. (It’s funny – I always used to wonder as a kid whether I had a superpower of some sort, and had an inkling that it might be a superhuman pain threshold... turns out an oncologist has since confirmed just that, albeit in a somewhat less superhero-ey manner. Henceforth expect to see my undies on the outside of my leggings.)’

‘Please please just BE A MATE to my husband and my parents and my brother and my family and my friends. As shitty as my health outlook is at the moment, I’d still much rather be in my position than theirs, and it would thus make me immeasurably happy if you’d just, y’know, be there for them.’

In September 2011 Mrs Lynch was told that the cancer had returned and that it had spread to her bones. There was no longer anything the doctors could do to cure her

In October 2012 she was given the news that the cancer had spread to her brain and that she had just months to live. She is pictured in September 2009 with her cat, Sergeant Pepper

In October 2012 Mrs Lynch and her family were dealt another devastating blow as she was told that the cancer had spread to her brain meaning that she only had months to live.

She wrote: ‘Today, I’m not letting you know how I am; I’m just letting you know. I’m letting you know that my cancer has spread to my brain; I’m letting you know that that it’s had a far from desirable effect on my prognosis; I’m letting you know that I’m due to be starting a new treatment this week that will hopefully shrink the tumour enough to postpone its effects for as long as possible; and I’m letting you know that I am – as are my family – devastated to the point of not knowing how to carry on.

‘But I am going to carry on. We are going to carry on. For you, Corey James [Mrs Lynch’s newborn nephew]. Because, regardless of the unspeakable shit that’s been thrown in her direction, the most important thing for your Auntie Lisa to worry about right now is staying around long enough to make you feel as loved as she does.’
Following her death, Mrs Lynch's friend Toby wrote a moving tribute on her blog.
He said: 'You shone even brighter and more brilliantly than any of us could have imagined.
'This blog is testament to it. Here you remain, a part of everyone who loves you, who cried along with you as the road turned rough and laughed as you wrote with humour and tenderness and life.
'You're still right here. You are here in these pages. You are here in the lives we led with you.'
Mrs Lynch's book The C-Word is being adapted for television by the BBC