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A young woman died at the age of 24 just months after she started to experience a pain in her throat and sore on her tongue. Beloved Ayla Eilery, from New York in the US, was diagnosed with skin cancer in 2021.
Despite having part of the tongue removed and reconstructed, as well as radio and chemotherapy it was discovered that the disease had spread to 13 other areas of her body.
She died peacefully in April 2022 after months of what her parents described as excruciating pain and suffering.
Now they are campaigning for other patients in similar situations to have access to Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD), which allows terminally ill patients to self-administer medication that will end their own life and is not currently legal in New York.
Born in New Jersey, Ayla moved to New York City after secondary school to follow her dreams in art and dancing. As reported by the Daily Mail, she was a regular performer and often exhibited her work, with her career flourishing up until the point she was diagnosed with cancer in September 2021.
READ MORE The 20 red flag warning signs of cancer that mean you need to see a doctor
Ayla Eilert died of cancer at the age of just 24 (Image: The Mirror)
Back in May of that year, Ayla started feeling pain in her throat and a sore appeared on her tongue but she was misdiagnosed by two doctors in two months.
As the sores remained, a biopsy was recommended by a third doctor in mid-September 2021. A week later, they were told she had squamous cell carcinoma.
Although the disease is not typically life-threatening, this type of skin cancer was made much more serious by being located on her tongue.
She underwent surgery just six days after the diagnosis, having a quarter of her tongue removed at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan.
The 11-hour operation involved having half of her tongue removed before it was partly rebuilt using tissue and skin from her thigh.
Ayla’s family are now campaigning for Medical Aid in Dying to be made legal in New York (Image: The Mirror)
She was then given six weeks to recover from surgery before starting radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
Ayla went through 30 brutal rounds of radiation treatment in just over a month, together with weekly chemotherapy. She experienced nausea, vomiting, pain and the loss of her voice as a result of the treatment.
By mid-January Ayla started to complain the fentanyl patches to help her cope with her pain were not enough.
Seeing her daughter deteriorate, her parents asked for a scan to be brought forward from mid-March, which revealed that the cancer had spread to 13 places across her body including her spine, neck, nose and ears.
By this point Ayla, who weighed only 87 pounds (39.4kg), was in constant pain and in March she asked her parents to help her die, telling them: “This is no way to live. Please help me die”.
Ayla died peacefully, her parents said, despite months of suffering (Image: The Mirror)
Her mother Amy told the Daily Mail: “She asked for medical aid in dying and they would say, ‘Well why do you want that?’ [Ayla replied], ‘This is not quality of life and I’m not afraid to die. I just don’t want to be in any more pain’.”
Ayla’s dad Daren said they were told by a palliative care doctor that they wouldn’t let her be in pain, adding her daughter was often in agony despite high doses of medication.
However, Daren said he feels they were lied to and that cases like her daughter’s are what MAiD was written for.
Wanting to die at home, she was discharged with hospice care and told she would get “aggressive pain management” which would involve large quantities of opioids.
But she was only able to stay home for two weeks as she was in too much pain and had to return to the hospital.
Daren described the night of April 1 as the hardest of his life and said: “I was not able to advocate for my daughter. Here is a man, a father failing at advocating for this girl – clawing at her neck in pain, whining. It’s just the most incredibly hard thing for me to do.
“And I am a fairly peaceful guy. But man, that was the hardest, that’s the angriest I’ve ever been in my life… it was a bad experience and MAiD would have just made this a beautiful experience.”
Ayla died the following day (April 2) at 6.45am. Her parents said that, after months of excruciating pain and suffering, this ended, describing the death itself as beautiful and peaceful.
Medical Aid in Dying is currently legal in Washington DC and ten other states including California, Hawaii, Maine and New Jersey.
Oregon was the first state where MAiD became legal, with its policy acting as a template for the proposed version for New York.
According to Cancer Research UK, common signs of skin cancer include:
- A sore that doesn’t heal
- Ulcer
- A lump
- Red patches on your skin
- Freckles or moles.
