A mother and daughter who were both diagnosed with cancer at the same time have died 10 hours apart in Brazil.
Cibele Marchis, 28, died at around 4pm on Thursday while her mum Maria Elisabete Nogueira, 56, was sedated in another hospital in the same Brazilian city of Mogi Guacu, around 100 miles northwest of Sao Paulo.
Family and friends were still at Cibele's wake when they learned of Maria's death. The pair were buried together in a joint funeral at a municipal cemetery.
Family's astonishment
Rawlinson Leandro da Costa, Maria Elisabete's nephew and a cousin of Cibele, told local media after their deaths: 'Neither of the two wanted to see the other die. They even commented on it, sometimes jokingly, other times seriously, and it happened. One never found out about the other's death. It really is an astonishing thing.'
Real estate and digital marketing worker Cibele, who had nearly 12,000 Instagram followers, had a rare and aggressive form of cancer that originated in her adrenal gland and was the first of the two women to be diagnosed after noticing her first symptoms in December 2023.
Emotional social media post
In an emotional social media post in March alongside a photo showing her hooked up to a drip, she wrote: 'As long as your only problem is money, be grateful. Worse is facing something that not even all the money in the world can solve.'
She contracted infections in December last year following surgery and her family was called in to the hospital. But she then made an unexpected recovery and was briefly discharged.
Her mum had been battling pancreatic cancer and had been in hospital since September 17 after her health worsened.
Tributes to the women
Paying tribute to the women, well-wisher Jorge Vitorino said referencing Maria Elisabete by her nickname Bia: 'It is with profound sorrow and immense sadness that we announce the passing of Bia Nogueira, mother of our dear Cibele Marchis.
'Bia was a light wherever she went: a joyful, affectionate woman with a generous heart, who left unforgettable marks on everyone who had the blessing of sharing her life.
'Her life was a constant example of faith, love, affection and dedication to family and friends.
'May the love and memories of her smile bring some comfort to the hearts of family and friends in this moment of inexplicable pain.
'Bia and Cibele remain together in the spiritual realm and forever etched in our memory.'
Cibele's friend Barbara Rodrigues dos Santos said: 'She never stopped working. She never stopped living. She never stopped doing the things she had to do.'
Colleague Eloa Righi added: 'She didn't let cancer define her. She didn't want to be known as Cibele who has cancer, but rather Cibele who works, has fun, lives, and has cancer.'
