Flying on the Inside

The remarkable true story of one woman’s journey back from the brink. Newly widowed and faced with a deadly brain tumour, she was given two years to live. She wanted more…

When her six-year-old daughter found her collapsed on the kitchen floor, Rachel had no idea how much her life was about to change.

A brain scan revealed a dark shadowy mass, a huge abnormal growth of tissue that, whilst benign, was still growing and would surely kill her. It was too big to operate on. It needed to be ‘managed’, and Rachel had, at best, two years to live.

Refusing to accept the bleak prognosis, Rachel was determined to stay alive. She had already lost far too much. She had already watched her brother succumb, at only twenty-eight, to cancer. She had already lost her beloved husband in a terrible scuba diving accident when she was six months pregnant. So she did the only thing she knew how to do. She fought for her life.

This gripping and inspiring memoir about overcoming tragedy and trauma charts one tenacious woman’s incredible fight to find light in the darkest of journeys. It is a life-affirming tale of positivity and hope in the face of the most difficult of human experiences.

Rachel Gotto was born and grew up in Glandore in West Cork, a few short steps from the Atlantic Ocean. An adept boat person from an early age, and most at home on the waves, it was there she developed the tenacious spirit that later proved invaluable when faced with a litany of personal traumas and tragedies.

Having lost her closest brother as a young man to cancer, Rachel was six months pregnant with her daughter when her husband died in a tragic diving accident. Diagnosed a few years later with a life-threatening brain tumour, she underwent life-saving surgery that resulted in her becoming paralysed. What followed was slow and painful recovery marred by a growing dependence on her prescribed medication.

Now a celebrated keynote speaker, life coach and clinical hypnotherapist, Rachel lives on the west coast of Ireland, in County Galway, where she enjoys being in nature. She loves to swim, fish, read, walk, keep pet hens, and spend time with family and friends.