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Sydney Towle, a 26-year-old TikTok creator who has spent nearly three years documenting her fight against a rare bile duct cancer, shared emotional updates in early March 2026 after scans revealed her tumors have grown — and is now openly weighing whether to stop working and simply live her life.
Towle posted a TikTok video on March 4 reacting to CT scan results related to her diagnosis of cholangiocarcinoma, a rare bile duct cancer she was first diagnosed with at age 23. She said she had a “bad feeling” about the scans before reviewing the report but hoped the feeling was anxiety.
The results confirmed her fears. “Everything has increased in size,” Towle said through tears. “All the tumors in my liver have grown. Some of the lymph nodes have grown. It also says that my spleen is increased in size, and I now have ascites.”
Ascites is “a buildup of fluid” in the abdomen, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Towle said in her video, “It’s not typically not a good sign.”
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The results were particularly devastating because Towle had undergone surgery in the summer of 2025 to receive a hepatic pump, a device designed to deliver high doses of chemotherapy directly to the liver. The procedure had been a source of hope.
“I thought the pump was gonna do her a big one,” Towle said. “I’m not really sure what to do. Definitely not the news I was hoping for, but I had a feeling.”
The day after posting her initial reaction, Towle shared another video describing waking up in tears. “I just really didn’t want to get out of bed because it’s just getting harder and harder to hear bad news when you’re trying so hard,” she said.
On March 7, Towle posted another update explaining that the results “hit harder than it normally does.” She acknowledged the emotional toll of repeatedly confronting setbacks, adding that there are “only so many doors that you can open and then have closed on you, especially with a rare cancer.”
Despite the heartbreak, Towle outlined next steps. She said she plans to travel to the National Institutes of Health to be screened for a possible clinical trial. Her oncologist may also recommend a new chemotherapy treatment, which she described as “one of the last chemo options available for my type of cancer.”
In a statement issued to People, Towle struck a more hopeful note. “Despite how hard the news is in the moment, I am still very hopeful given how many options continue to become available for those of us facing this and similar diseases,” she said.
On March 9, Towle posted a “Get Ready With Me” video and shared details about the demanding week she was facing. “Let’s go beat cancer’s a–,” she said at the start.
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She described a packed schedule: meeting with her oncologist to discuss results for the first time, chemotherapy that day, traveling on Wednesday to the NIH on Thursday, and then back up to New York.
“Been struggling a lot at this point because, one, I’ve just been not feeling great, and I don’t know if that’s just in my head,” she said.
Towle then revealed something that underscored the broader emotional reckoning she now faces: she has worked since she was diagnosed and has never taken any medical leave, despite it being available to her.
In one of the most candid portions of the March 9 video, Towle spoke openly about the difficult decisions weighing on her.
“And I am getting to the point where I’m like, am I just going to work until I’m in a hospital bed? And that’s not what I want for myself. I wanna live my life,” she said. She added that she feels “extremely stressed out all the time” and thinks that is “also probably not good for my physical health.”
“When you’ve been stage four, and stage four can be chronic, and it’s just like, at what point do you just take the leap, I guess, and go and live your life? Because nobody else can make that decision for you,” Towle said.
Towle was diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma nearly three years ago and has documented her treatment on TikTok since sharing her diagnosis publicly. Cholangiocarcinoma is considered one of the rarer forms of cancer, and a stage 4 designation typically indicates the disease has spread beyond its point of origin.
