Sydney Towle is baring her soul about the arduous journey of maintaining positivity amidst her harrowing battle with cancer. The Dartmouth alumnus, diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma, or bile duct cancer, two years prior, delivered a poignant update to her 800,000 TikTok followers on June 17th.
"For the first time, I walked into a consultation and heard the devastating words, 'This isn't good,'" Sydney said in a heart-wrenching video. "It's a sentence no cancer patient ever wants to hear."
She went on to reveal that her latest health update necessitates the installation of a hepatic pump, described by UPenn Medicine as "a sophisticated medical device designed to administer chemotherapy directly to the liver." Scheduled for surgery on June 30th, with an anticipated hospital stay of four to five days, Sydney emphasized that using the pump in conjunction with chemotherapy therapy would be an "experimental endeavor."
Tears streaming down her face, she recounted how her health issues have disrupted the normalcy of her life as a 25-year-old. "I kept silent about it because I feared this would happen," she confessed. "I had planned to embark on a trip starting June 30th, but I had to cancel it. I hope I get to take it someday."
Sydney has previously opened up about the challenges of having cancer at her age, sharing with People in May 2025, "I believe one of the toughest aspects of this ordeal is being young." She elaborated, "Watching my friends enjoy dinners out and live their lives fully, while some days I couldn't even step out of the house, was incredibly difficult. Chemotherapy makes you feel unlike yourself – your body transforms, exhaustion permeates your every waking moment, and everything seems out of sync. It felt as though my life had hit pause while everyone else's continued to move forward."
As she wrapped up her video, her voice trembling with emotion, she emphasized, "This is not the life I envisioned for myself."
Despite it all, she is striving with all her might to stay resilient. "People tell me, 'Don't let go of your positive outlook,' and I'm fighting hard not to," she concluded through tears in her latest video. "But there's only so much positivity one can muster."
