Peabody Native Yagjian a Fighter to the End

Mere hours after a team of family and friends walked around in Wakefield Sunday night to , the 28-year-old Peabody native succumbed to the rare form of cancer she had battled for an entire year.

Danielle was diagnosed with a stage 4 non-Hodgkins lymphoma -- a cancer involving cells within the immune system -- last year shortly after her son was born. The disease is so rare in fact that specialists say only 40 people have been diagnosed with it.

Friends closely supporting the family said the wife and mother of one underwent a regiment of treatments during the past year, including months of chemotherapy, a cord blood transplant in May and a new trial drug, but the tumors returned.

The family was given the hardest news of all this past Saturday. Longtime friend Charlene Gormley, also a member of the team supporting Danielle under the banner of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, said doctors gave Danielle only weeks to live.

"Throughout all of this she has remained positive and has not uttered one complaint. Her son just turned a year old and yesterday Danielle was given two to three weeks to live by her doctor," Gormley told Peabody Patch.

The tragic news on Monday was shared publicly via a Facebook page that had been created to gather donations for Danielle's care and chronicle her fight. Her husband, Jared Yagjian (also a Peabody native), had posted a note via Facebook Sunday evening, saying Danielle was not feeling well and wouldn't be able to attend the walk in Wakefield.

In addition to her husband, Danielle leaves behind their one-year-old son, Cole. The family lives in Rowley.

Gormley said last week that her friend was fighting right to the end.

"Danielle is not giving up. She is continuing to fight this awful disease. And we are going to let Danielle know that she has an army behind her, willing to do anything it takes," Gormley said, referring to the walk Sunday night.