A woman diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer announced her own death this week.
“Note to my friends: if you’re reading this, it means I’m dead. I’m so sorry, it’s the horses— and we both know it,” Casey Ryan McIntyre wrote in a pre-planned obituary posted on Instagram Monday, the day after her death.
The carousel’s cover photo was a group shot of a smiling McIntyre, her husband Andrew Rose Gregory and their daughter Grace Valentine.
“I loved each and every one of you with all my heart and I promise you, I knew how deeply I was loved,” added the 38-year-old vice president and publisher of Razorbilla Penguin Random House.
Gregory later updated the post, noting that McIntyre “intended to end this post with a list of things that have been a comfort and joy to her throughout her life, and it breaks my heart that I will never see that list. As she got sicker, I couldn’t finish it. ”
Woman, 24, told to lose weight by doctors who dismissed her pain – but had ovarian cancer
McIntyre died at her home in New York on November 12, it said tweet Gregory posted on X on Wednesday.
The Manhattan native and Tenafly, New Jersey transplant was a noted bibliophile, who “saw herself in every child sprawled out on the couch, rug or bunk bed engrossed in their latest book obsession,” according to her husband’s obituary.
Casey McIntyre.
Casey McIntyre/ Instagram
As a child, when McIntyre wasn’t engrossed in reading, she could be found at YMCA Camp Fuller in Rhode Island, swimming, sailing and gossiping. During college in Decatur, Georgia, she studied music and creative writing.
“Until her end,” McIntyre’s happy place was always the water, preferably lounging in a pool with a book.
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According to her obituary, early in her career she interviewed at Penguin Random House on a particularly rainy day. However, she didn’t let a bit of bad weather get in the way of her dreams.
“Wet to the bone from the rainstorm”, “she left as a publicist’s assistant”.
As her career progressed, “she was incredibly proud to support a range of outstanding authors throughout her career as publicist at Penguin Young Readers Group, publicist at Harper Collins and publisher at Razorbill, including Katherine Applegate, The Tiny Chef, Briana Jacques, Akilah Hughes” and more.
Publisher’s Weekly recognized McIntyre as 2015 PW Star Watch Award Winner.
Gregory thanked the “superior medical” providers who gave her loved ones “four more years with Casey.”
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Casey McIntyre.
Casey McIntyre/ Instagram
To keep her legacy alive, as well as to help others, her family will pay medical bills for people in need.
“We’re going to celebrate her life with an anonymous medical debt buyout and then anonymous forgiveness, hopefully at a bonfire if they’ll let us,” Gregory said. “Through the charity RIP Medical Debt, we buy other people’s medical debts and destroy them. Every penny buys roughly $1, which is an eye-opener about our power to eliminate medical debt and how contrived and fictional medical debt is so devastating.”
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Source: HIS Education