Everything Sydney Towle Shared About Rare Cancer Battle Before Death

Followers had grown used to her blend travel videos (hiking through Spain, traveling Ireland and flying cross-country with her chemo port to attend Coachella) GRWM content and messages from the chemo bay.

In fact, her unique ability to remain upbeat through the most dire of news—when her oncologist told Towle he would be transitioning her to end-of-life care in May, she switched hospitals and walked in Miami Swim Week days later—had turned a collection of Redditors into skeptics, determined to prove she was a fraud. 

"People will comment things like, 'You can’t have cancer—you still have your hair,'" she revealed to People, "or 'You don’t look sick.'"

But in her July 21 missive, she acknowledged, "I'm not gonna lie, every day is extremely challenging with the pain that I am constantly experiencing, but I have hope that I can do this." 

And she did. While her battle ended Aug. 5, "I'm bringing light to this," she explained to Today of her continued social media posts. "It always seems to help people feel less alone like they're not the only ones that are going through something that’s very challenging."

Sydney Towle/Instagram

What Type of Cancer Did Sydney Towle Have?

Testing determined the Ivy League grad had cholangiocarcinoma, a rare bile duct cancer that grows on the tubes that connect the liver, gallbladder and small intestine and is most often diagnosed with those in their '70s. 

"I've never heard of bile duct cancer," Towle acknowledged to Today. "I only knew the major forms of cancer like breast cancer, lymphoma." 

Her disease was so rare, she added, "There's not one set treatment plan." But hers involved five initial months of chemotherapy and immunotherapy, followed by a January 2024 surgery to remove what remained. 

"I came out of it, and the surgeon said that she got all of it pretty much," she shared with Today. "There was some cancer like left on the margin where they resected my liver. But overall the tumors were gone."

However, subsequent MRIs detected a lesion that August that soon doubled in size. 

Moving to New York, she linked up with a new medical team who informed her that despite the cancer on her liver and one abdominal lymph node, her white blood cell count was too low for chemo, meaning she'd have to explore clinical trials. 

What Did Sydney Towle Share About Her Cancer Journey?

Throughout her entire three-year battle, Towle excelled at finding even the slimmest of silver linings. 

Though she'd spend days in bed after receiving chemotherapy and dealt with bloating and swelling, "I feel like I got pretty lucky with the symptoms," she told Today. "I wasn't getting extremely sick." 

In addition to the chemo (she started a second round in December 2024), Towle underwent a series of clinical trials and received a hepatic pump to deliver the medicine directly to her liver.

While it was certainly a battle, the toughest part was "watching my friends go out to dinners or just live their lives, while I couldn't even leave the house some days," Towle shared with People in 2025. "I feel like my life was on pause while everyone else's kept moving." 

It was the moments where she truly got to live—like a chemo-free trip to Ireland in April—that kept her pushing forward. "I want more happiness and friendship and love and live," she explained in an April 28 TikTok. "I'm terrified that's not gonna happen, but we'll just get through tomorrow and then we'll take it as it comes." 

Sydney Towle/Instagram