By Tanita Gaither
COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) - A Columbia man posted an emotional goodbye to his wife nearly seven months after they were married in a ceremony doctors said she wouldn’t live to see.
Laurin Bank, 30, of Columbia, passed away on Oct. 21 after battling Stage 4 breast cancer.
“Yesterday morning [Sunday] she was feeling very week and off, but still seemed to be doing fine,” her husband, Mike Bank, wrote on her Facebook page Polka.dot.queen. "After getting her home from her aunts house we could not get her comfortable. We had morphine brought in which didn’t even help.
Her story was featured by PEOPLE magazine just after the couple was married on March 24, 2018. Laurin, who had defeated breast cancer in 2015 and endured chemotherapy, radiation, and a double mastectomy, saw the cancer return in 2017. Cancer returned to Laurin at Stage 4 and had metastasized through her bones, liver, and lungs.
“The oncologist said waiting six more months to get married would be risky,” Laurin told PEOPLE."She said she wasn’t sure whether I’d need a wheelchair to get me down the aisle. She said it would be best for us to move up our wedding date. The doctor also said with my lungs not being so strong, I might need oxygen for my wedding day.”
The magazine said her doctors urged her and then fiance, Mike, to change their wedding date fearing she wouldn’t make it.
“This date was special to us,” Laurin told PEOPLE magazine earlier this year. “We felt like moving that date was giving up and giving in to the cancer and letting it run our lives. We didn’t want to give in. That was our goal … and I was able to walk down the aisle to my husband. I was able to dance with him and I didn’t need a wheelchair or oxygen. I did it I made it.”
But they did make it together to their March 2018 date, as captured by Tiffany Ellis Photography.
In his post, Mike showed his devotion to his wife and how he will always remember and love her.
"It's been my honor to be by her side the past 3 and a half years and i would not trade the memories that we have made for anything in the world. She has made me so much a better person.
You can see his full post here.
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