TikToker Kimberly Nix leaves final video for followers: 'I've passed away'
Dr. Kimberley Nix, who had been battling metastatic sarcoma for three years, left a final video message on her social media account before she passed away peacefully on May 8. She was 31.
In the TikTok video, she said, "Hello followers, if you're seeing this message I have passed away peacefully. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Kim, hi! It's so nice to meet you and you're welcome to check out all the cool sarcoma facts, information and my lived experience with death and dying with sarcoma cancer. You don't have to go just because you're new."
The internal medicine doctor shared more about her "beautiful life," including the things that matter to her: her husband, pets, family and friends, and makeup.
As she did her GRWM video "one last time," Nix continued and reflected on the first time she started doing TikTok videos in 2021. Her goal at that time, she said, was to spread awareness about sarcoma cancer by sharing her journey living with the disease.
She also talked about her bucket list, which included getting engaged, married, and living out her dream life in New York City just like in Gossip Girl. On top of that, she also mentioned her trips to "the mountains, San Francisco, and a winery" visit, plus seeing Taylor Swift and Coldplay perform live.
Nix started tearing up as she mentioned her husband, saying she was sad about leaving the "love of her life."
“The most beautiful love and my only sadness in dying is knowing that we didn’t get to grow old together,” she said in the video. “Everything else is totally bearable, because that is the only thing that really matters.”
At the end of the video, she encouraged her viewers to donate to the Sarcoma Alliance, a charity dedicated to “improving the lives of people affected by sarcoma through accurate diagnosis, improved access to care, guidance, education, and support.”
“I just can’t thank you all enough for being so supportive for your comments, for cheering me on, for helping us feel not alone in this process. This community has meant the absolute world to me and I can’t thank you enough,” she concluded the video.
“I will miss you, TikTok. I love you all, thank you for this amazing, amazing opportunity. I am in happy tears because you have all made me find so much purpose in the end of my life and I can’t thank you enough. Thank you from the bottom of my heart always,” Nix said.
Nix was diagnosed with undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma at the age of 28. She was completing her internal medicine residency at that time and started documenting her fight for three years since 2021. She is survived by her husband, Michael MacIsaac.
The National Cancer Institute explains that undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma usually develops in the body's soft tissues, like muscles or connective tissue, and sometimes in the bones. This type of cancer most often appears in the legs, arms, or the area behind the abdomen.
"Symptoms of sarcoma are so important because there is no screening test. My symptom was the most common symptom in soft tissue sarcoma. [Everything was] completely normal — including all my lab values — except for a small, but rapidly growing lump in my left leg," she told People.
"Mine changed rapidly, which led me to see my doctor right away. It went from the size of a pea to the size of a golf ball in just over a week," she continued, adding how she took a chemotherapy pill every day for treatment.
