A Canadian woman and former contestant on The Bachelor, Hailey Merkt, has passed away after a battle with a rare form of cancer.
“It is with broken hearts we share that our beloved Hailey has passed away after a courageous fight for her life,” reads the post on her Instagram account.
Merkt of Vancouver, BC, was diagnosed in August 2023 with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), which, according to the American Cancer Society, accounts for only about 1% of all cancers.
The Instagram post goes on to say that, “Hailey faced this journey with unimaginable strength, grace, and selflessness. Her determination, courage, and will to live surpassed every timeline the doctors gave her, and she chose to spend her final moments surrounded by loved ones and doing what she cherished most with no regrets.”
According to the Instagram post, a GoFundMe for Merkt will remain active until August 10 and there is a message for those who donated.
“To everyone who gave to her GoFundMe, I don’t think you’ll ever fully know what a lifeline it was. It took the sudden and immense strain of worrying how to pay for the rent, living expenses, her medications, her trial medicine which did in the end give her an extra 8 irreplaceable months, and later her beloved dog Snuggles getting cancer and having his tumour removed. It gave her the ease to feel she was still living her life in the time she had left,” reads the post on the fundraiser.
Journey with cancer started last summer
Merkt was diagnosed last summer and in an interview with Daily Hive last year says she initially thought that she was having a panic attack from her heart pumping so much blood and called for an ambulance to bring her to the hospital.
Hailey Merkt/Submitted
“Four hours after arriving, an entire team of doctors came to tell me that I had leukemia and that it was bad,” Merkt told Daily Hive. “I was told I could not leave and chemo would begin in the morning. I stayed in the hospital for six weeks and tried two types of chemotherapy, both failing.”
Merkt, a senior marketing and communications manager who has worked for a variety of brands, including Daily Hive, was told that she had a mutation within her AML diagnosis that caused the chemo drugs to be ineffective.
She went through a number of expensive and experimental new treatments during her cancer journey.
After her diagnosis, her mother left her job in Kitchener to come to be with her only child in Vancouver.
The GoFundMe notes all proceeds will be used to afford remaining costs that have overwhelmed Hailey’s mother and family.
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With files from Daniel Chai