Heartbreaking photo of popular YouTuber taken before her death
The final photos of a popular YouTuber, taken before she lost her battle with cancer, have been shared online by her grieving husband.
Melanie Ham, 36, from Los Angeles, grew a dedicated following of 815,000 subscribers through her DIY videos for sewing and crocheting on her YouTube channel.
In 2018 she was diagnosed with a mass in her kidney. It was removed but in August 2020 she wrote on Instagram it had returned and she required further surgery.
She wrote in her blog she had Epitheliod Angiomyolipoma, which is a type of malignant tumour. Ms Ham needed ongoing treatment after surgery.
Ms Ham continued to post tutorials but unfortunately, her condition worsened. She wrote in her blog in October she was undergoing chemotherapy as the condition worsened, and that in June she took drugs which made her hair fall out.
“That was a really hard moment for me. Robert shaved my head and we just cried together. We were of course hopeful that this chemo would work but after a few rounds we scanned again and the chemo wasn’t doing a darn thing – all the cancer was still progressing. Another gut punch,” she wrote.
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On January 13, her husband Robert posted on Instagram that she had died.
“Over the past few months things have been progressively getting worse and we’re thankful that we made it to this point through the holidays and tried to make every moment count. We are short nine days of our 16 year anniversary,” he wrote.
“My family, our doctors, our nurses and especially Melanie fought until the end and did all we could do to avoid today, but that is not our path. Let me reassure all those rooting for us, Melanie fought like a warrior queen.”
He shared a number of photos of the pair with their family, including a photo of Ms Ham in hospital not long before her life was taken by the “insidious disease”.
“Please understand the intent of the last one, it is very vulnerable, but am honoured to be here with her on this journey,” he wrote of the photo.
There are plans for a funeral for Ms Ham on Saturday, with it set to be live streamed.
She leaves behind her loving husband and two children.
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