Andy Sealy, metastatic breast cancer awareness advocate and medical aid-in-dying activist, has died at 44

Andy Sealy, 44, of Philadelphia, a media-savvy breast cancer awareness advocate and energetic activist for updated medical aid-in-dying laws, died Sunday, Aug. 4, of metastatic breast cancer at her home.

Ms. Sealy was diagnosed with stage IV metastatic breast cancer in 2017 and spent the next seven years sharing her roller-coaster experiences in treatment, urging all women to “check your boobs” for lumps, and lobbying Pennsylvania and New Jersey legislators for comprehensive laws that permit compassionate medical aid-in-dying procedures. She co-launched a podcast, Making the Breast of It, in 2019, named her poignant blog “My Deafening Diagnosis,” and chatted on Facebook about anything on her Just Ask page.

She took her dogs, Dink and Dash, on national and local TV shows to promote cancer awareness, and was a spokesperson for Penn Medicine’s cancer care and the Colorado-based Compassion & Choices nonprofit. “I really feel like this happened to me for a reason,” Ms. Sealy said in a Penn Medicine video. “I’m fortunate that it happened to me because I don’t have children, and I’m not married. I’d rather it be me than someone I love who would have to deal with all of that.”

She became selfless, family and friends said, and they called her “a blessing,” “a guiding light,” and “absolutely fearless.” She was their advocate, too, they said, and she told a friend on Facebook in June: “I am so proud of you and this huge accomplishment. … You’ve worked so hard, and look at you now. You can do anything. You proved that.”

She was open and expressive about her own fears and hopes, and family, friends, and others rallied around her year after year. Her outreach efforts were featured in The Inquirer and Daily News, in Philadelphia and People magazines, and in other outlets, and she threw a raucous party at a Broad Street bar a few days before undergoing a double mastectomy in 2017.

She called the affair her “ta-ta to my tatas,” and she said then: “I don’t want people to feel bad for me because I don’t feel bad. Don’t say sorry to me because I’m not that type of person.”

She learned that the cancer had spread to her hip and spine after the surgery, and went on to have more surgeries and countless rounds of chemotherapy. Her family and friends gathered around her last Sunday in South Philadelphia.

“She was raw, a straight shooter, a real Delco girl,” said longtime friend Tara Amato. “She made friends everywhere and wanted to help everybody.”

Ms. Sealy was especially moved by a Linda Ellis poem called “The Dash,” in which a person’s life is represented as the dash between the date of birth and the date of death. Ms. Sealy, who was born Feb. 4, 1980, said in the Penn Medicine video. “You’ve got to work on that dash and make sure you live every moment.”

She confronted the importance of helping terminal patients and their families ease the burden of impending death, and championed such a Pennsylvania proposal that remains under government review. In 2019, she told Compassion & Choices officials: “If I were your own sister, daughter, or wife, how would you feel about having to watch me diminish to nothing due to a terminal disease?”

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Andrea B. Sealy grew up in Sharon Hill and graduated from Academy Park High School in 1998. She studied human development and family studies at Pennsylvania State University, and organizational and strategic leadership at Neumann University.

She worked as a sales representative and restaurant manager, and enjoyed time with friends in Philadelphia and Margate. She followed the Eagles and Phillies so closely that she had the GPS coordinates of Lincoln Financial Field and Citizens Bank Park tattooed on her arm.

She was strong, loyal, and graceful, and made people laugh, her friends said. She was a gatherer, one friend said, “the conduit that connected so many people.”

She liked to sing and dance with her nieces, and they said that those were “the best times in our lives,” and that she was “the coolest aunt in the world.” She talked openly of her bouts of depression and despair and of how she “faked it until I made it” to get through the hard times.

» READ MORE: This Philly woman got breast cancer, then threw her breasts a goodbye party

“Andy became everyone’s hero,” her family said in a tribute. “Losing her has us heartbroken yet with a legacy that leaves us speechless.”

Ms. Sealy is survived by her parents, John and Kathi Sealy, her siblings, and other relatives.

A celebration of her life (she requested a rager) is to be held later.

Donations in her name may be made to Living Beyond Breast Cancer, 40 Monument Rd., Suite 104, Bala Cynwyd, Pa. 19004.