Syd came to me in a dream, and I said, “Oh no, Sydney Towle. I’m not ready to dream about you yet.” And she left without saying a word.
I imagine Sydney is coming to lots of people in their dreams. She had a million followers on TikTok, and like me, many of them had become very attached to her and couldn’t quite figure out why they cared so much about someone they had never met and only knew through the videos she posted. We baffled ourselves. We wanted so much for her to live and be happy. (And she did live, and I think was a lot of the time very happy for the 3 years she had left to her after she was diagnosed). I learned about and started following Syd on TikTok on Nov. 1, 2025. I can’t remember why — probably because I had done so much online searching about cholangiocarcinoma that it became part of my TikTok algorithm (along with standup comics, movie reviews, and dance routines) and so she was put in front of me. But once I watched a few videos and learned more about her, she quickly became part of my daily routine: make coffee, feed the dogs, do my puzzles, check on Syd.
Diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma at 23, she gave the world an intimate look at what it was like to be young and living with cancer. She was mostly sunny, and a real scrapper (but kind of a subtle scrapper), from what I could tell, but also cried openly when the scans were bad or she was just plain exhausted from chemo and from trying to get what she needed out of her oncological team. She was also funny — “time to go slay some chemo,” she’d say. Can you remember what you were doing at age 23? I was in the Peace Corps in Papua New Guinea. I felt like my whole life was ahead of me, and it was. It is very hard for me to imagine what I would have done with a diagnosis like that at that age.
I don’t think that cancer patients should have to perform positivity. I myself often have not just sad or angry, but really ugly and mean feelings about having cancer. But I have to admit that I found Syd’s good cheer and determination to be uplifting and inspiring. And when she cried I just wanted to wrap my arms around her. I think probably we all did. And I really admired her willingness to share some of the ways that cancer treatment affected her body — there’s a photo of her in a bikini in which the outlines of her hockey-puck-sized hepatic artery Infusion pump show through the skin of her abdomen. I look at that photo and I think “fierce — she was really fucking fierce.”
I feel really, really sad that Syd died. I think many of her followers do. Her videos now have millions and millions of views, and I think some of those people are new to her and have just found out about her from the news (or the fake news, such as the fake video of Jimmy Kimmel offering to pay for her funeral). But I bet many of those views are people like me — people who miss her and are going back to watch her videos again. I’m still not quite ready to dream about Sydney Towle, but I hope she tries again.
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