Baloy reportedly 'passed away peacefully' on Wednesday.
Maddy Baloy, a kindergarten teacher who gained a large social media following after documenting her life with terminal cancer, has died. She was 26.
In a statement to People, Baloy's fiance, Louis Risher, said Baloy "passed away peacefully" on Wednesday night "surrounded with love." Risher added, "She is so special. I turned 27 yesterday, actually. I was holding her hand all day and that's all I needed."
According to her GoFundMe page, Baloy was 25 when she was diagnosed with metastatic stage 4 cancer. She shared on her page that she initially thought she had a stomach bug when she went to urgent care, 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 require future surgeries in the near future," Baloy wrote at the time.
"My heart is bursting at the number of people who have reached out to me asking to help in anyway possible," she added. "As I now require around-the-clock care, Louis and I are now unable to work and finances will be extremely tight."
Baloy hailed from Tampa, Florida, and amassed 446,000 followers on TikTok, on top of another 27,000 followers on Instagram.
The first social media post that detailed her cancer diagnosis came in March 2023, when she shared that she "started getting tummy aches" in June 2022. Baloy said she thought the painful cramps that lasted 10 to 20 seconds was routine and part of her new normal because they were so frequent. But then she had a dramatic weight loss -- some 50 pounds -- without trying. She said she "chalked it up to luck" but would occasionally get nauseous.
But then the nausea wouldn't go away and she couldn't stop vomiting. After visiting urgent care, Baloy said the nurse practitioner told her it wasn't just a simple stomach ache but that "all your signs are indicative of cancer," forcing her to immediately go to the emergency room. She said a CT scan showed a large mass in her large intestine and cancerous tumors. She underwent emergency colorectal surgery to battle her stage 4 cancer diagnosis.
Since that point, Baloy made it her mission to not only put up a fight 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 scare. In one video that garnered nearly a million views, she documented herself pulling her hair out of her scalp. The video then transitions to her smiling in the camera with a shaved head. In the caption she wrote, "And I have never been more beautiful. F*ck cancer. #cancersucks #cancer #cancerfighter."
This past February, Gordon Ramsay fulfilled her wish of meeting him. She documented the experience on Instagram and TikTok, sharing that she and four others ate at his Lucky Cat restaurant.
According to People, Baloy is survived by Risher, her mom, Carissa Talmege, and her stepfather, Lucky Talmege.
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