25-year-old completes 12 rounds of chemo, but a week later, doctors discover another life-threatening emergency (EXCLUSIVE)

need to know

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

• The 24-year-old’s worries were initially dismissed before he was finally diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer.

• Now in an apology, Seifert shares a video about her experience on TikTok and talks to people about what she’s doing today.

Paige Seifert knew something was wrong when she noticed blood in her stool while on a trip with friends in August 2024.

Seifert, 24, told herself that if things didn’t clear up by the next week, she’d go to the doctor. So when weeks passed and nothing improved, she wasted no time before booking an appointment.

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

“It didn’t go away, but thankfully, I had a physical a month later,” Seifert tells PEOPLE exclusively. “I went to the physical, and it was still happening constantly. They said, ‘We’re going to send you to a GI specialist to get a hemorrhoid band.’ They were like, ‘It’s still hemorrhoids. It cannot be anything else. You are 24, your blood looks good. You are not anemic. No worries really.’ “

By the time she was finally admitted to a GI specialist in December 2024, she was still dealing with the same symptoms. He then scheduled a colonoscopy for the next month to get a general overview before going in for hemorrhoid surgery.

“It’s all like a six-month process, because referrals take forever, especially when you’re 24 and healthy,” she says. “There’s no rush to get you to the doctor.”

However, when he finally had his colonoscopy in January 2025, everything changed.

“Finally I do the colonoscopy, and I wake up, and the doctor is standing there telling me right away that they found cancer. They didn’t have to do a biopsy or anything,” she says.

Immediately, they sent her to an oncologist to plan a course of action. He was officially diagnosed with stage 3 colorectal cancer a week later.

They told Seifert he would need 12 rounds of chemotherapy and a colon resection — or colectomy, surgery to remove all or part of the colon. They told him it didn’t matter what he did first, so, on February 12, 2025, Seifert had a port placed in his chest and five days later, chemo officially began.

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

After pausing chemo, he underwent colon resection surgery and a temporary ileostomy – which allows digestive waste to exit the small intestine through a stomach stoma – in July 2025.

“A month later, they reversed that ileostomy. Then I finished four more rounds of chemo,” shared Seifert.

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

“My mom flew in from Texas to do my colonoscopy because I needed a ride,” she told PEOPLE. “I think she was a little upset, so she came to me, and the doctor told me she had cancer, so I kept her by my side.”

“As soon as I told my friends, they were extremely supportive. My dad went out for his first oncology appointment, and they went out for his first chemo treatment,” she adds.

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

However, going through chemo at the same time made the two even more bonded, Seifert says.

“That was also a great support system, because my mom is already so supportive, and then she could feel my pain, which I hate that she had to go through, but being able to talk to someone who knows exactly what chemo is like is really great,” she says. “It’s hard to find that community at a cancer center because I’m the youngest person there by two decades.”

Along with the support of her loved ones, Seifert, an avid skier, says physical activity has kept her “positive and happy.” She would go in for treatment every other Monday, get her infusions, then take a few days to rest and, on the weekends, ski about 15 miles.

After 10 months, Seifert officially ended treatment on November 17, 2025. However, a week later, doctors discovered a 5 cm blood clot near her heart and a pulmonary embolism, which “was discovered as a fluke.”

“The doctors were amazed that I was alive and sitting up and talking,” she says, adding that she went for a follow-up CT scan after the chemo was over.

“My doctor called me two hours later and said, ‘Hey, are you having chest pains?’ I said, ‘No, I just got back from an eight-mile mountain bike ride. I feel good.’ He says, ‘You should go to the hospital right now. You’re going to have a heart attack or die.’ “

“I went straight to the hospital and was there for a week over Thanksgiving, and had surgery to remove it,” she shares.

Now, Seifert says she “feels great,” which she admits is “crazy to say that she had stage 3 cancer and had to think about my death at an age when I don’t think people should think about death.”

“But even after going through all that, I feel better than ever,” she says. “I have this whole new appreciation for every day because I feel like it can be taken away at any time.”

“I’ve just gained a greater appreciation for life, which I think makes me feel better even though I’m still sick, suffering from all the side effects of chemo. I’m grateful to be alive and want to make the most of everything I can,” Seifert adds.

One of the worst side effects, she says, is dealing with neuropathy — nerve damage that often causes numbness or tingling in the hands and feet.

“Since September, after my abdominal surgery, I haven’t been able to feel my legs or my toes. It’s hard to pick things up. I can’t write with a pencil. I can’t run because I can’t feel my legs,” Seifert says, adding that it may be something she deals with for the rest of her life.

After Seifert posted a video online about her cancer journey, she received a stream of comments from people close to her in the Denver area sharing similar stories. From there, she was able to build a community of people who were either going through cancer treatment or had survived it.

“I had a lot of bad side effects and hospitalizations because of the chemo and my port and that stuff. People were invested, but they also related to my experience. There’s a lot of community to be found there,” shares Seifert.

With some of her friends, she made a short film about her experience, which forced her to look at what had happened “a little more seriously”.

“It would be really helpful for me to reflect on everything that happened. I stayed athletic, and I didn’t really think about it. I was in survival mode,” she shares. “My partner and I recently had a conversation about how tired I am because of chemo. It started a conversation about what this treatment means for our relationship.”

“I’ve thought about death a lot in the past year. I’ve grown to accept death as a concept. I’ve come to accept that when it’s time, it’s time, and I can take advantage of everything that I could die in a car accident tomorrow,” she continues. “Nothing is promised. It’s made me appreciate everything around me more. But even thinking about dying at 25 is scary.”

While she knows that “there’s no reason anyone should ever have or go through cancer,” she still tries to find a “silver lining.”

“It makes me want to travel more. It makes me want to take advantage of more opportunities,” she shares. “I’ve always prioritized my job, savings and all of that. I worked through all my treatments, and now I’m like, go to Japan for two weeks and go skiing. I take every opportunity to do what I want to do and explore what I want to do.”

Read the original article on People