The last words a Peterborough nurse and mother posted to social media before she peacefully passed away last Friday (April 24) have gone viral for their positive message about life.
At 46 years old, Brianne “Bri” Thompson (née Pearson) was surrounded by family when she died by Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) — a decision she made after she found out the metastatic breast cancer she had survived had spread to her brain.
The farewell message, which Brianne posted on Threads, reads: “Good bye everyone! I’ve had a great life. Wonderful Children, a great career which I enjoyed beyond words and a lovely life with my husband. Everyone be good to yourself and have an amazing life. No one knows how long they have so enjoy every minute.”
That message, punctuated with a red heart emoji, was likely meant for friends and family but, in just four days, had garnered over 127,000 reactions, 7,500 comments, and 3,700 re-shares. It even attracted the attention of People magazine, which ran a story about the post on Monday.
Born in Lindsay to the family behind Pearson Insurance, Brianne worked as a registered nurse at Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC) right out of school. The hospital honoured her by hanging their flags at half-mast on Monday.
It was at PRHC 20 years ago where Brianne met her best friend Jennifer Morrissey, who is described as her “partner in crime” in Brianne’s obituary. Since then, Jennifer says Brianne was a “constant” in her life and they shared their “dry, usually offside” sense of humour.
“She loved playing practical jokes on people,” Jennifer says. “She was one of the charge nurses on the unit and when the doctors would come do their rounds, they would leave with little gifts in their pockets. She would put some inappropriate things in their pockets when they were leaving, and they would find little messages later or little drawings. They would always know it was Bri.”
According to Jennifer, Brianne also performed in several plays at the FLATO Academy Theatre in Lindsay, and, as a good singer and lover of karaoke, even auditioned for Canadian Idol.
“She was always up for anything you wanted to do,” Jennifer recalls. “Whatever funny picture you wanted to take, whatever funny joke you wanted to play on someone — she was always up for it.”
Perhaps Brianne’s resilience and positive spirit is best represented in how she continued on with her wedding to Alan Thompson — and the 211-mile backpacking trip on the John Muir Trail she had planned for her honeymoon — just two weeks after she was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer on August 30, 2023.
Also having multiple nodules in her liver, Brianne started treatment the week she returned from her honeymoon. She was given 13 rounds of chemotherapy and after the treatment came to an end in the spring of 2024, her scans were continually clear.
Brianne went back to work and continued supporting her young adult sons, 21-year-old Thomas-Jay and 19-year-old Chase, from her previous marriage to Jay Callaghan. She shared some of her cancer journey to social media and supported local cancer care at PRHC by participating in Peterborough’s Dragon Boat Festival.
With her scans coming back clear, Brianne didn’t suspect anything else was wrong until just over a month ago, when she began feeling very unwell and fatigued despite typically being a very active person.
She kept thinking she was just dehydrated, until she experienced a moment where she couldn’t remember her dog’s name and she fainted.
Her husband Alan took her to the hospital and a scan confirmed that she had two very large tumours and several small lesions on her brain. She was taken to Kingston where, just a few days later on March 24, she had the large tumours removed.
She was told radiation wasn’t an option, so she started chemotherapy again. However, after just one round of treatment, she already began losing her memory and experienced serious side effects.
“Even in the very beginning with the breast cancer, she always said to me that because she was so active and loved life so much, that if she became her disease, she didn’t want that,” Jennifer says.
“She said ‘This is my brain. I don’t want to be stupid and, if I continue on with chemo, it’s palliative. I know it’s not going to cure me.’ And so she made the difficult decision to do MAID, which is so brave.”
Jennifer notes that Brianne was “agonizingly” okay in the days leading up to her death, likely reassured she had made the right decision because MAID had brought a peaceful end for both her grandmother and her aunt.
Jennifer says Brianne “went out on her own terms and that’s what she wanted.”
“Everyone else had to take a beat to catch up to her because she was so positive. She just kept saying ‘It is what it is’ and ‘I want everyone to live their lives and think of me and laugh.’ Even right to the end, she was a hostess in her own house a half hour before she died. It was insane, but that’s who she was.”
Jennifer hopes that Brianne’s story could support other breast cancer survivors who, like Brianne, don’t show any symptoms of it spreading to the brain.
About 15 to 30 per cent of people with stage 4 breast cancer will experience brain metastases, though typically patients would be showing symptoms of dizziness, headaches, memory problems, and blurred vision long before Brianne experienced them.
“Even her oncologist is saying this is the type of thing that changes practice, and we would love to see practice change,” says Jennifer, noting that routine brain scans are not standard for breast cancer patients unless symptoms appear.
“For some people maybe it doesn’t go to their brain, but wouldn’t you like to know that? Wouldn’t you like to know if something, even one small thing, is going on? It’s important.”
Not only has Brianne’s final message on Threads been eliciting comments from people touched by her positivity and appreciation for life, but many commenters have shared their own experiences losing a loved one to cancer, or reflecting on their own lives.
“She was humble but she would love the attention, because if she could give that out and have someone else learn something from that or get comfort from that — that’s what she would love about it,” Jennifer says. “When I think of her, I think of positivity, so even though I’m sad when I think about what’s happened, I know she’d want this to be positive. I have to latch on to that.”
A celebration of life reception for Brianne will take place from 6 to 9 p.m. on Friday (May 1) at High Park Funeral Centre at 2510 Bensfort Road in Peterborough. In lieu of flowers, the family is requesting donations to the Canadian Cancer Society.
