25-Year-Old Finishes 12 Rounds of Chemo, but One Week Later, Doctors Discover Another Life-Threatening Emergency (Exclusive)

YOU NEED TO KNOW

• Paige Seifert knew something was wrong when she saw blood in her stool

• The then-24-year-old’s concerns were initially dismissed and he was eventually diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer.

• Now in recovery, Seifert has been sharing videos about her experience on TikTok and talking to PEOPLE about how she’s doing today

Paige Seifert knew something was wrong when she saw blood in her stool during a trip with friends in August 2024.

Seifert, then 24, said he would go to the doctor if things didn’t improve the following week. So when the week went by and nothing was improving, he didn’t waste any more time before making an appointment.

During the checkup, the doctor asked if there was any family history of gastrointestinal (GI) problems. When I said no, I was told that it was probably hemorrhoids and that it would go away after a week with the help of some stool softeners.

“It didn’t go away, but thankfully I got checked out a month later,” Seifert tells PEOPLE exclusively. “I went to the doctor and it just kept happening. They said, ‘We’re going to send you to a gastrointestinal specialist to get the hemorrhoid taped.’ They said, ‘It’s still hemorrhoids.’ It couldn’t be anything else. You’re 24, your blood looks great. You’re not anemic. There’s really nothing to worry about.’ “

When he finally went to see a gastrointestinal specialist in December 2024, he was still dealing with the same symptoms. He then scheduled a colonoscopy for the following month to get an overview before undergoing hemorrhoid surgery.

“This is all like a six-month process because referrals take so long, especially if you’re 24 and healthy,” he says. “I’m in no rush to take you to the doctor.”

But everything changed when he finally had a colonoscopy in January 2025.

“I end up getting a colonoscopy and I wake up and the doctor is standing there and immediately gives me the news that they found cancer. They didn’t even have to do a biopsy or anything,” he says.

They immediately referred him to an oncologist to come up with a plan of action. A week later, he was officially diagnosed with stage 3 colorectal cancer.

They told Seifert he would need 12 rounds of chemotherapy and a colon resection, or colectomy, which is surgery to remove all or part of the colon. They told him it didn’t matter which one he did first, so on February 12, 2025, a port was placed in Seifert’s chest and he officially started chemotherapy five days later.

“I thought, ‘It’s ski season, so if you give me the green light to ski, let’s do the chemotherapy now, do the surgery later,'” he says. “I had eight rounds of chemotherapy, then took a month off to recover for surgery. Then I had surgery and then had a temporary ileostomy.”

After taking a break from chemotherapy, she had colon resection surgery and a temporary ileostomy (which allows digestive waste to exit the small intestine through a stoma in the abdomen) in July 2025.

“After a month, they reversed the ileostomy. I then completed four more chemotherapy sessions,” says Seifert.

During the process, Seifert says she was very lucky to “have such a great support system.”

“My mom flew from Texas to come to my colonoscopy just because I needed a ride,” she told PEOPLE. “I think he was a little scared, so he came with me and I kept him with me after the doctor told me I had cancer.”

“When I told my friends, they were extremely supportive. My father flew for his first oncology appointment, and they flew for his first chemotherapy treatment,” she adds.

Unfortunately, Seifert shares that her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer around the same time, so she had to step back to focus on her own health.

But going through chemotherapy at the same time ties the two together even more, Seifert says.

“It was also a great support system because my mom is already so supportive and could feel my pain, which I hate for her to have to go through, but it’s really great to be able to talk to someone who knows exactly what chemotherapy is like and is going through it with you,” she says. “It’s hard to find that community at the cancer center because I’m probably the youngest person there in twenty years.”

An avid skier, Seifert says physical activity, along with the support of her loved ones, keeps her “positive and happy.” He would come for treatment every two weeks, receive his vaccinations, then take a few days to rest and ski about 25 kilometers on weekends.

After 10 months, Seifert’s treatment was officially completed on November 17, 2025. But just a week later, doctors discovered a 5cm blood clot near Seifert’s heart and a pulmonary embolism “found by chance.”

“The doctors were pretty shocked to see that I was alive and sitting and talking,” he says, explaining that he underwent a CT scan after finishing chemotherapy.

“Two hours later, my doctor called me and said, ‘Hey, are you having chest pain?’ he said. I said, ‘No, I just got back from an eight-mile mountain bike ride.’ ‘I feel great.’ ‘You need to go to the hospital immediately,’ he says. You’re about to have a heart attack or die.’ “

“I went straight to the hospital and stayed there for a week over Thanksgiving and had it surgically removed,” she shares.

Now Seifert says she “feels great” and admits that “it’s a crazy thing to say,” considering she has “stage 3 cancer and had to think about my mortality at an age when I thought people shouldn’t be thinking about death.”

“But even going through all this, I feel better than before,” he says. “I have a whole new appreciation for each day because I feel like it could be taken away from me at any moment.”

“I’ve had a greater appreciation for life, and I think that makes me feel better, even though I’m still sick, suffering from all the side effects of chemotherapy. I’m grateful to be alive, and I want to maximize everything I can,” adds Seifert.

One of the worst side effects, he says, is dealing with neuropathy, which is nerve damage that leads to numbness or tingling, often in the hands and feet.

“Since September, after my colon resection surgery, I haven’t been able to feel my feet or toes. It’s hard to lift things. I can’t write with a pen. I can’t run because I can’t feel my feet,” says Seifert, noting that this may be something he will deal with for the rest of his life.

After Seifert posted a video about her cancer journey online, she received a flood of comments from people near her in the Denver area sharing similar stories. From there, she was able to build a community of people undergoing or surviving cancer treatment.

“I had a lot of negative side effects and hospitalizations from chemo, my port, and things like that. People were invested, but they were also interested in my experiences. There was a lot of community to be there,” Seifert shares.

Met up with some friends short film about the experience that forced him to look at what he was going through “a little more seriously.”

“It will be really helpful for me to think about everything that happened. I stayed athletic and didn’t think too much about it. I was in survival mode,” he shares. “My partner and I recently talked about how I was constantly tired from chemotherapy. This sparked a conversation about what this treatment meant for our relationship.”

“I thought about death a lot last year. I started to accept death as a concept. When the time came, I accepted that it was time to make the most of everything because I could die in a car accident tomorrow,” he continues. “Nothing is promised. It made me more grateful for everything around me. But it was also scary to think about dying at 25.”

Even though she knows “there is no reason for anyone to have or experience cancer,” she still tries to find a “silver lining.”

“It makes me want to travel more. It makes me want to get more opportunities,” he shares. “I always prioritize my work, my savings, and all that. I kept working throughout my entire treatment, and now I’m like, let’s go to Japan for two weeks and go skiing. I take every opportunity I can to do what I want to do and explore what I want to explore.”

Read the original article People