Maddy Baloy, a kindergarten teacher who gained a large following on social media after documenting her life with terminal cancer, has died. She was 26.
In a statement about this PeopleBaloy’s fiancé, Louis Risher, said Baloy “passed away peacefully” on Wednesday evening, “surrounded by love.” Risher added: “She is very special. I actually turned 27 yesterday. I held her hand all day and that was all I needed.”
According to her GoFundMe Page, Baloy was 25 when she was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic cancer. She shared on her page that she initially thought she had a gastrointestinal illness when she went to the emergency room, only to find out it was cancer.
“Since my cancer diagnosis a few days ago, I have already undergone two surgeries and am now facing chemotherapy and will need more surgeries in the near future,” Baloy wrote at the time.
“My heart is bursting when I see so many people who have reached out to me asking for help,” she added. “As I now need round-the-clock care, Louis and I are now unable to work and finances are becoming extremely tight.”
Hailing from Tampa, Florida, Baloy has 446,000 followers on TikTok, in addition to another 27,000 followers on Instagram.
The first social media post about it detailed her cancer diagnosis came in March 2023, when she shared that she “started getting stomach pains” in June 2022. Baloy said she believed the painful cramps, which lasted 10 to 20 seconds, were routine and part of her new normal because they were so frequent. But then she suffered a dramatic weight loss — about 50 pounds — without trying. She said she “put it down to luck” but occasionally felt sick.
But then the nausea wouldn’t go away and she couldn’t stop vomiting. After she went to the emergency room, Baloy said the nurse told her it wasn’t just a simple stomach ache, but that “all your signs point to cancer,” forcing her to go to the emergency room immediately. She said a CT scan showed a large mass in her colon and cancerous tumors. She underwent emergency colorectal surgery to combat her stage four cancer diagnosis.
Since then, Baloy has made it her mission to not only fight the battle against cancer, but to do so with a smile on her face. Her TikTok videos earned her millions of views as she put on a brave face amid the health crisis. She documented pulling her hair out of her head in a video that has been viewed nearly a million times. The video then shows her smiling at the camera with her shaved head. In the caption, she wrote: “And I have never been more beautiful. Fuck the cancer. #CancerSucks #Cancer #CancerFighter.”
Last February Gordon Ramsay fulfilled her wish to meet him. She documented the experience on Instagram and TikTok, sharing that she and four others ate at his restaurant, Lucky Cat.
Accordingly PeopleBaloy is survived by Risher, her mother Carissa Talmege and her stepfather Lucky Talmege.
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