At the age of 26, Maddy Baloy, a TikToker who won over millions of fans by sharing online updates about her life with terminal disease, passed away.
According to her fiancé, the Florida kindergarten teacher passed away on Wednesday night. She had shared personal videos of herself checking off items on her bucket list, such as eating with Gordon Ramsay at his Miami restaurant.
‘Madison passed away peacefully last night,’ her partner Louis Risher told PEOPLE in a statement on Thursday, adding that she was ‘surrounded with love.’
‘She is so special,’ Risher said. ‘I turned 27 yesterday, actually. I was holding her hand all day and that’s all I needed.’
After experiencing stomach problems in the summer of 2022 and vomiting blood, Tampa resident Baloy was eventually diagnosed with stage four colon cancer.
Nevertheless, the 26-year-old maintained her optimism throughout the gruelling ordeal by posting about her inspiring journey on social media, which attracted hundreds of thousands of followers.
In her final TikTok posted in March from Japan, she showed viewers internal photographs of tumours in various parts of her body.
She went on to explain that she was on her dream vacation in Kyoto but the weather was so cold she had been ‘shivering’, so she wanted to face the challenge of taking a bath with her colostomy bag.
‘Hi, my name is Madison and I have stage four terminal cancer, and I haven’t taken a bath in a year,’ she said.
‘My cancer is in my large intestine, my small intestine, my uterus, my ovaries—basically, the entire lower half of my body is filled up with cancer. Because of that, I had to have emergency surgery to receive a colostomy [bag].’
As tears filled her eyes, she added: ‘The only thing that I can think of is how amazing a bath would feel. This house happens to have the most beautiful bath that I’ve ever seen. But because I have a colostomy, I haven’t taken a bath in a year.’
Baloy noted that after she had her colostomy, she never imagined she would take a bath again because it would be too ‘messy.’
‘But I’m in Japan for a very limited amount of time. I’m here on Earth for a very limited amount of time, and I don’t want to be afraid to take a bath. So, come take a bath with me,’ she said as tears fell down her face.
Following her diagnosis, Baloy made her first cancer TikTok to share the bucket list, which she was in ‘a hurry to finish’.
Coming in at number one, Madison said she wanted to ‘see everything.’
She also revealed that she wanted to party in a DJ booth, learn how to roll a joint, have a wedding, get a tattoo with her grandma, sleep under a willow tree, be a podcast guest, and meet Gordon Ramsay.
In response to her clip, the 57-year-old British chef said he would love to meet Madison—and not just as a regular meet-and-greet.
This is such a sad story, but why are so many young people getting this so early? Probably because the majority of people eat processed foods that are eaten daily from a box, packet or tin. Not fresh, wholesome foods that we are used to, and the worst thing about it is our government allows these companies to sell people this garbage.
Cancer screenings should be done free of charge from the age of 30 years old, if not before, and for all cancers—earlier if there’s a family history of cancer.
Let’s thank Gordon Ramsey for giving this lady her wish to dine at your restaurant, and even cook for her. In this age of celebrity culture, some celebrities would have ignored her request, but Gordon is awesome for doing this.
This woman was very young to have stage 4 colon cancer. What the hell is going on, and what’s going into our food and water? And it puts life into perspective when something like this happens. Heaven just got an angel with a beautiful smile and a sweet soul.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 