A 17-year-old girl has died after a life-long battle with cystic fibrosis.

Kirstie Marie Cook, who lived in Ribbleton Grove, Barkerend, with her mother, Michele, died peacefully at St James’s Hospital in Leeds with her mum, dad Jackie, brother Sean, 21, and sister Helen, 24, at her bedside.

Mrs Cook said Kirstie’s death had left the whole family devastated.

“We will miss her so much,” she said. “She always made me laugh – she was happy and outgoing and always told you what she thought.”

Kirstie was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis when she was only two months old.

It is the UK’s most common life-threatening inherited disease and affects the internal organs, especially the lungs and digestive system, by clogging them with thick sticky mucus. This makes it hard to breathe and digest food.

To help Kirstie, her family learned how to carry out physiotherapy twice a day and also administer the antibiotics she frequently required. At the age of 14 Kirstie learned how to do this herself.

Mrs Cook said: “When she was young she was OK but as she got older, in to her teenage years, she did become fed up with her treatment and not being able to do everything her friends were doing.”

Kirstie attended the former St Mary’s Primary School in Bradford and Yorkshire Martyrs College in Westgate Hill, Bradford, which she left last year.

She had planned to go to college to take maths and English GCSEs and do a nail course, but was too ill to take up her place.

“She didn’t like going to hospital and would rather have her treatment at home,” said Mrs Cook.

“From last October she was on intravenous antibiotics all the time – she would get out of breath and was finding things difficult.”

An appointment was set for Kirstie to visit doctors in Newcastle on April 5 with a view to being put on the list for a lung transplant but she had the appointment cancelled.

“When it came to it she was scared about going,” said Mrs Cook. “It was not what she wanted and I left it to her – she was intelligent and would tell me what she wanted and she stuck to it.”

Kirstie had been a life-long patient at St James’s Hospital, being treated as a child on ward 12, before moving to ward two at the age of 16.

“The staff were brilliant and Kirstie liked most of the people there but she liked to come home,” said Mrs Cook. “But eventually she asked me to go back to hospital with her. She knew herself she had not been quite as poorly before.

“She had a chest infection which seemed to take over her, because of the lung damage.”

The family are now preparing for Kirstie’s funeral which takes place this Friday and many of her young friends are expected to attend.

Requiem Mass is being held at St Clare’s RC Church, Fagley, at 9am followed by interment at Scholemoor Cemetery. If desired, flowers may be sent to Frank Cooper’s Private Chapel, 199 Barkerend Road, Bradford, BD3 9AL.

e-mail: claire.lomax @telegraphandargus.co.uk