Brave Hannah loses her fight
HER courageous smile lit up Australia when she took Knights football star Trent Hodkinson as her date to her school formal, but now 15- year- old Hannah Rye has lost her battle with cancer.
Her grieving family said her dazzling smile – with which she bravely faced years of chemo, surgery and radiation treatment – will now live on in their hearts.
“We have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of love from everyone who was touched by her smile, her strength, her courage and her kindness,” mum Racheal Rye said. “She was a shining star.”
The Year 10 student from the Hunter Valley passed away peacefully at home at 11.10pm on Sunday with Mrs Rye and her father Lance holding her close, after battling Ewing’s sarcoma – an aggressive form of cancer which often strikes teens. She was diagnosed with the cancer at just 13.
Despite being in a wheelchair for the past four months, Mrs Rye said her daughter had made an enormous effort to walk on the arm of Hodgkinson to the formal, which was brought forward over fears she wouldn’t see the year out.
“It was a very high dose of steroids that gave her the ability to walk, aided by Trent, into the formal,” Mrs Rye said. “But she really loved it.”
Confined to bed since then, the plucky schoolgirl had been unwell in recent days with a build- up of fluid on her lungs.
A service will be held for Hannah on September 1, with the family asking for support for the Kick Sarcoma organisation, kicksarcoma.org.au