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Belfast Live
National
Shaun Keenan

Serena Terry opens up about the tragic loss of twin brothers

Derry's Serena Terry has discussed the death of her twin brothers during a new interview.

The 35-year-old, who is known on social media platform Tiktok as Mammy Banter, appear on Memory of Me which is hosted by fellow-Derry woman Bronagh Burke.

Speaking on the podcast, Serena describes how losing her beloved twin brothers Patrick and Daniel became the catalyst for a new beginning.

Read more: Energy hikes leave NI grandmother wearing 'four cardigans a day', says Cllr

Serena, who recently released a new book, emotionally revealed how her 38-year-old brother Patrick died suddenly in 2019 after discovering he had cancer.

She said: "Patrick was working at the Methodist Misson at the time. He started to get a pain in his back, just below his shoulder blade.

"It was one of those pains, niggles that he was just like 'it's just my posture', 'I'm sleeping the wrong way' or do you know when people say that they just have a bad back.

"He was constantly rubbing cream on it and using heat patches and it got so bad one day that literally before his shift for work he went to the doctors and he told them the symptoms and they said they would do some blood tests."

Patrick would go to work that day, only to be told that he needed to go to the hospital the next day.

"They told him to go straight over to Altnagelvin and he went over and they did a biopsy.

"He was diagnosed with liver cancer and five weeks later he passed away.

"We didn't even have time to get him into the hospice.

"He had sole custody over his daughter, who my mammy now has custody over. It was hard because we didn't have time to process it but we were told it was stage three and it was terminal.

"What was hard for us was that we could take that in and process it but he was in complete denial."

However, more heartbreak would be down the road for the Derry comedian when her other brother, Daniel, died only four weeks after Patrick.

Serena added: "I remember looking at Daniel at Patrick's funeral and I told my mammy that she would have to prepare for this in a few months because Daniel is not going to be here.

"Obviously Daniel already had his demons but without Patrick, Daniel was vulnerable, and Patrick was there checking up on him.

"He came up to mammy's house one day and he was pure yellow and this was only four weeks [after Patrick died].

"He went to the doctors and they said it was alcohol poisoning. We knew Daniel had issues with alcohol but he was obviously just drinking after his grief.

"He was admitted to casualty and me and mammy went over doctors said it was alcohol poisoning."

Daniel's condition later deteriorated quickly, leaving him fighting for his life in ICU.

"He was hallucinating, he was at the stage of liver breakdown, there was not much output, he wasn't going to the toilet or anything.

"He couldn't verbalise and this was three days after going in. They put him on a ventilator and then it got to the stage that there was nothing else they could do.

"My poor mother had to hold his hand. She had to hold his hand and watch another one of her sons die.

"They turned off the ventilator."

"What was bittersweet for us and it's the one thing my mammy always says, they are not alone. They are together. And that was the one bittersweet we had with them passing so close.

"Everything we talk about now, it's 'them two up there' because Daniel wouldn't have survived here and that was inevitable.

"He couldn't be here while Patrick wasn't here."

Read more: Derry woman with diabetes reaches peak of Mount Kilimanjaro

Read more: NI college set up scholarship in memory of former teacher

For more Derry news, visit our new site MyDerry

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