TikTok star Sydney Towle, who built a large following online by documenting her battle with a rare and aggressive form of cancer, has died at the age of 26.
Her family announced news of her death on Thursday by posting tributes across her social media accounts reading, “An endless ray of sunshine. A daughter, sister, and friend to so many.”
“We will always love you so much Sydney,” continued the caption, accompanied with a smiling photo of the influencer. “I am so proud of how hard you fought. I love you.”
Her death comes after a three-year fight with stage 4 cholangiocarcinoma, a rare cancer that affects the bile ducts and is most often diagnosed in older adults.
According to her older brother, Austin Towle, Sydney entered hospice care shortly before her death on Aug. 4 and was surrounded by loved ones during her final days.
Towle first revealed her diagnosis in 2023, when she was 23 years old and began sharing the realities of living with cancer to social media.
She posted regular updates to her more than 1 million followers about surgeries, chemotherapy, and clinical trials as well as the emotional challenges she faced while undergoing treatment.
Over the last couple of months her condition worsened, but the TikToker continued posting videos from her hospital room while receiving treatment for severe pain and other complications linked to her cancer.
On May 17, Sydney revealed that doctors discovered her cancer had spread to her peritoneum, the thin membrane lining the abdominal cavity and pelvis.
Just days later, she recounted a conversation she had with her oncologist, where she was told that the doctor did not want to pursue further treatment and she was encouraged to begin end-of-life care.
Rather than giving up, Sydney sought a second opinion and transferred her care to another cancer specialist in hopes of further treatment.
At the time, she was awaiting the next phase of an experimental clinical trial involving tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte therapy, an immunotherapy approach that uses a patient’s own immune cells to target cancer.
In one of her final video updates before her death, Sydney reflected on the challenges of her declining health as she remained hospitalized.
She expressed sadness that she could not help her mother move into the home they had recently purchased together before offering an optimistic message despite her circumstances.
“I’m not going to lie, every day is extremely challenging with the pain that I am constantly experiencing, but I have hope that I can do this,” she told followers on July 21. “Every day is just me taking it day by day. Just keep swimming, just happy to be here.”
She is survived by her mother, Elizabeth Morrow, and her brother, Austin, and preceded in death by her father, Philip Towle, who died in 2016.
