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LAURA BRENNAN: THIS IS ME ***NEW**

Laura Brennan: This Is Me Image Name: Laura Brennan: This Is Me Description: Laura Brennan Copyright: RTÉ

Laura Brennan: This is Me

This new one off documentary on the RTÉ Player, follows the final chapters in the life of Laura Brennan who was living her life to the full with end stage cervical cancer. After a heroic battle Laura died on March 20th 2019.

Laura Brennan was 26 years old with a zest for life that was second to none.  Although living with a diagnosis of terminal cancer, Laura concentrated on living, not dying. As far as she was concerned, we’re all dying, so there was no point focusing on it!

In early December 2016, Laura was diagnosed with Stage 2B cervical cancer. She was treated with a combination of radiation and chemotherapy but the prognosis was good. She was declared cancer-free on the 15th June 2017. Laura bought a house, got herself a dog (Bailey) and set about living life to the full. But, three months later, the cancer was back, and this time was deemed incurable.

Laura was determined that every parent in Ireland who was about to make the decision whether their daughter was to be vaccinated against HPV, would hear her story first.  Laura worked tirelessly as an advocate for the HPV vaccine. Her like 5% of all cancers, is caused by the HPV, human papillomavirus. The vaccination rate in Ireland had fallen to 51%, thanks to a lot of ill-founded negative publicity around the vaccine. Once Laura’s cancer returned, she began work with the HSE as the patient voice, to try and reverse this downward trend and prevent girls facing a similar fate to hers. The most recent figures reveal that the uptake of the vaccine has risen to 70%.