TikTok Star, 22, Dies of Bone Cancer After Painful 4-Year Journey: 'I Am So, So Scared'
"Yes the cancer has spread and yes the tumors have grown,” said Leah Smith, who documented her struggle with Ewing Sarcoma to more than 500,000 followers
TikTok star Leah Smith, who documented her health struggles to more than 500,000 followers, has died from stage 4 bone cancer, her boyfriend Andrew shared in a video posted to her account on Monday.
She was 22 years old.
Smith had Ewing Sarcoma, a type of bone cancer that “begins as a growth of cells in the bones and the soft tissue around the bones” according to the Mayo Clinic, which added that although it can occur at any age, it generally affects young adults and children.
“I’m sad to say that she passed away today around half-eleven this morning,” Andrew said in his video. “I just want to say thank you to everyone. All your comments did help, like, she did actually read all of them. Anyone who said anything nice ever, it means more than you realize.”
As Smith, a Liverpool native, shared at the end of January in a TikTok, “I’m not well again. I hate this, like being in bed for a week… I go to sleep and wake up even worse than I did feel the night before. I’m so unwell.”
She returned to the hospital on February 3, telling her followers, “I can’t even move to go to the toilet or anything because I’m in that much pain. I’m just stuck sitting like this.”
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Her pain was so severe that she was sent for tests to determine if her cancer had spread.
And on February 8, Smith gave an update: “I had an idea but when [you’re] told it still hurts so yes the cancer has spread and yes the tumors have grown.”
“They have changed my pain meds finally…my doctor said just worry about the pain for now but this feels like the [beginning] of the end knowing it will likely never go.”
And on February 14, Smith shared “things have took a bad turn…I have fluid on my right lung.”
“I feel like someone is crushing my insides,” she wrote on TikTok.
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On February 18, Smith posted another video, writing that things were dire.
“Update that I didn’t think I ever wanted to do,” she wrote. “The doctors have said there’s no point trying to give me more antibiotics and fluids because it just isn’t working anymore. All the pain meds aren’t working so they really just want to get me to a comfortable state as much as possible.”
“Idk what this means for me if this is the end up the journey but all my family have came around and I am just going to act like I’m good and great because quite frankly I am so so scared. I don’t want to d!e yet. I’m sorry.”
“Am I going to die in this hospital?” she asked in one of the last videos she posted. “Am I ever going home?”
Her brother, Liam, and friend, Vikki, eventually took over posting updates for Smith, until Andrew’s update on Monday announcing her death.
“We’ll all miss Leah, but we’ll make sure that we never forget her,” Andrew said in his video. “I want to see everyone speaking about Leah, how amazing she is and how much she helped everyone. We’ll never let Leah be forgotten.”
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