Woman, 25, Receives Hate Online After Bile Duct Cancer Diagnosis (Exclusive)

• Sydney Towle had never experienced any major health issues
• Then in May 2023, while out for a run, the New Hampshire native noticed something strange: a large bump protruding from her abdomen
• Out of caution, she visited an urgent care clinic. Later, she was diagnosed with bile duct cancer
• Since then, she’s opened up about her cancer journey on social media

Sydney Towle had never experienced any major health issues, aside from a bout with kidney stones. As she puts it, she was in “perfect health.” The recent Dartmouth graduate had just moved to Los Angeles, was running regularly and had earned her yoga certification.

But in May 2023, while out for a run, the New Hampshire native noticed something strange: a large bump protruding from her abdomen. She didn’t feel any other symptoms at the time, so when she got home, she did what many people would — she Googled it. Her search suggested it might be an exercise-induced hernia, so she began exploring treatment options.

Soon after, things took a turn. Towle, only 23 at the time, began feeling a burning sensation in her stomach, even during light activity.

“It got to the point where I couldn’t even go on walks anymore,” the 25-year-old tells PEOPLE exclusively over the phone.

Out of caution, she visited an urgent care clinic. The doctor agreed it could be a hernia but ordered an ultrasound to be safe. The results showed a solid mass — something much more serious.

Towle was quickly referred for an MRI, which revealed multiple masses in her liver and bile duct, one of them significantly large.

“They were like, ‘Yeah, this is cancerous. We don’t know what type yet, so you’re going to need a biopsy and a lot more testing,’ ” she recalls.

After further evaluation, she was diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma, or bile duct cancer, a rare and aggressive cancer that typically affects adults over the age of 50. According to the Mayo Clinic, the disease begins in the slender tubes that carry digestive bile and is associated with symptoms like abdominal pain, fatigue, fever and night sweats.

“I don’t fit any of the demographic factors,” Towle says. “It’s usually found in people with other health issues, or older individuals with a history of hepatitis. That’s why my oncologist is repeating tests and doing another biopsy — just to make absolutely sure. It’s extremely rare in someone my age.”

Still, despite the shock, Towle says she wasn’t entirely surprised.

“I almost had an idea it was cancer,” she says. “We all know our bodies pretty well. And when this started happening, I just had a feeling. When I went in for the ultrasound and they found the solid mass, I told myself, ‘Honestly, yeah, I’m just going to have to accept that this is probably cancer.’ So when they actually said it, I wasn’t really shocked.”

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That same day, Towle tells PEOPLE she posted a video on TikTok documenting the moment she received the diagnosis. “I post everything anyway,” she says. “I told people, ‘This is going to be a really big part of my life.’ ”

The post, initially shared without much thought, quickly resonated. Viewers flooded her inbox with messages of solidarity: people who had cancer, or who had watched loved ones go through it.

Since then, she has amassed nearly 770,000 followers on TikTok and 60,000 on Instagram, where she continues to document her journey. All together, her videos have garnered more than 18 million views and touched people across the world.

“From that point, it became so helpful for me to connect with others,” she says. “And to hear that my honesty was helping people — it gave me a purpose. What’s really kept me going is the people who message me or even come up to me and say, ‘You’ve helped me so much.’ Just knowing that being vulnerable and real about cancer is making a difference — that’s been huge for me.”

“I am just trying to take it day by day and hoping for the best in every scenario, and trying to just put my best foot forward and do whatever the doctors tell me to do,” she adds. “I’m obviously hoping that I am not part of the statistics that I read online.”

Immediately following her diagnosis, Towle began treatment in Los Angeles. At that point, the tumor in her liver had reached 11 cm., an unusually large size, she says. Because everything moved so fast, she wasn’t able to freeze her eggs or take other precautionary measures before starting chemotherapy.

Her regimen included both chemotherapy and immunotherapy, a targeted treatment that attacks cancer cells. She underwent five months of treatment, and her progress allowed her to undergo surgery, which had been the initial goal.

In January 2024, Towle had a liver resection, her gallbladder removed and several abdominal lymph nodes taken out. The plan was to resume chemotherapy afterward but a combination of positive margins (residual cancer cells) and a white blood cell count that never rebounded prevented her from continuing.

“I think one of the hardest parts of all this is being young,” she says. “Watching my friends go out to dinners or just live their lives, while I couldn’t even leave the house some days, was really tough. With chemo, you don’t feel like yourself — your body changes, you’re tired all the time and everything feels out of sync. I felt like my life was on pause while everyone else’s kept moving.”

“I’ve always been active,” she adds. “Finding it more challenging to hike or run is still something I’m trying to accept.”

Through it all, Towle says her mindset and support system have carried her.

“I’ve always told myself, ‘This too shall pass.’ I know that sounds cheesy, but it’s something I go back to in hard times. I know I’ve gotten through hard things before, and I’ll get through this. I just have to keep going and trust there’s light on the other side.”

She continues, “My family has been everything. I talk to my mom and brother every single day, even though they were across the country while I was going through all of this. My friends in Los Angeles and from Dartmouth were also incredible. Having a strong support system is so critical when you’re going through something like this.”

Eventually, Towle relocated to New York City to continue treatment at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, one of the nation’s leading institutions for cancer care. Since then, she’s resumed the same chemotherapy and immunotherapy regimen has been told she will be on it indefinitely.

She’s also in the midst of pursuing other treatment options and opinions as well, and has continued to speak about the importance of self advocacy online and at various events and conferences. One of her goals is also continuing to prioritize physical activity as best as she can in order to run the Los Angeles Marathon next March.

“I mean at this point I pretty much share everything,” she says. “I don’t have drafts in my TikTok because as soon as I think something, I post it. I think sometimes I’ll get in my head and be like, ‘Wow, I’m really crying a lot,’ or, ‘I’m really showcasing a lot of my emotions on this app to a lot of people.’ But ultimately, I mean, if it’s helping other people, I don’t really care. And if people are going to judge me or anything for being emotional, then I realize that those just aren’t the type of people that I would want in my life anyway.”

“People will comment things like, ‘You can’t have cancer — you still have your hair,’ or ‘You don’t look sick,’ ” she continues. “That’s been really hard. It’s painful when people question something so real just because it doesn’t match their idea of what illness looks like.”

“Honestly, before going through this, I also had preconceived notions about what cancer looked like,” Towle adds. “I thought most people with cancer lost their hair, or that you’d always look really sick or weak. So I understand where some of that comes from.”

Now, through sharing her journey online, Towle hopes to challenge those stereotypes not just about cancer, but about invisible illness in general.

“I hope that by watching my videos, people realize that so much of what people go through, whether it’s physical illness or mental health struggles, isn’t always visible,” she explains. “We’re all so quick to judge based on what we see on the surface, but we really need to give each other more grace. Everyone’s carrying something, and we don’t need to make it harder on one another.”

“There are always going to be people who don’t believe me, no matter how many times I post that I’m in the hospital or getting treatment. But at this point, it’s not my job — or anyone’s job — to convince others of what we’re going through. I just hope we can become a little more compassionate as a result.”