TIKTOK star Mackenzie Paul has died at the age of 26 following a lengthy cancer battle, her husband has confirmed.
The influencer went viral in August 2023 after sharing that she had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.
Paul, who was a second-year medical student at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine when she was diagnosed, used TikTok to document her battle with #TakingBackWhatCancerTookFromMe.
In a video posted to Facebook, her heartbroken husband Brandon tearfully confirmed her death.
“As you know, Kenzie is in heaven now,” he said as his eyes were red and swollen from crying.
“Selfishly, I wish she was here, still with me, and it’s going to take the whole rest of my life to get over this. But the one thing I am really, really happy about is that she’s not in pain anymore.”
“The past two and a half years, I’ve been blessed to be married to the best woman out there,” he continued.
“I also had to see her go through some very, very tough times, and you know, she was pretty transparent when it came to social media, but there were times when she was in the ICU and she was not breathing on her own — times none of us really shared — and it was a miracle that she made it this far.”
In her final post, shared on TikTok five days ago, Mackenzie weakly spoke inot the camera as her throat was drying up and her mouth was swollen with sores and painful wisdom teeth.
“It hurts so bad it’s bringing me to tears,” she said in the brutally honest clip, adding that the pain was making it difficult to eat.
“Other than that it’s been a great last few days,” she said, adding that different family members had been over to visit and others were due to arrive over the next few days.
“As always, please just continue praying for my leukaemia to be healed and for complete healing in general,” she said at the end of the video.
In his video, Brandon called her his “rock” and “best friend” with the pair tying the knot in June 2023 on what they called the “most magical day of our lives”.
Mackenzie revealed to PEOPLE that she went to the doctor after she started feeling dizzy and tired.
“Other than being more tired, I really didn’t have any symptoms,” the former Lake Superior State University athlete said.
“My whole life I’ve been really healthy. I was a college athlete. But I remember looking at my labs and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is horrible.’”
While fighting for her life, Mackenzie turned to art to help her through and ended up launching My Mantra Project to create portraits of “fighters of all kinds” including those tackling depression, addiction, and illness.
Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/15837178/tiktok-star-mackenzie-paul-cancer-battle-death/