ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Madison Baloy had been dealing with some stomach aches and losing weight. In late February, those stomach aches became too much. She called out sick to Shore Acres Elementary, where she teaches kindergarten, and headed to urgent care.
"I went to urgent care thinking that I had a simple stomach bug," Baloy said. "I thought that they were going to give me some anti-nausea and send me on my way, but it resulted in spending 10 days in the hospital and getting my diagnosis."
Her diagnosis was stage four adenocarcinoma with an occult primary. This means doctors are not able to detect where her cancer is coming from.
"With most cancers, there is a primary source," Baloy explained. "We initially thought my primary source of cancer was either my colon or my ovaries. However, whenever we did super in-depth medical looks at both of those, neither were showing signs of cancer.'
Baloy said she thought the hardest thing she'd face as a 25-year-old is wrangling the 18 kindergarteners she teaches.
"And the universe had other plans because chemotherapy has been the hardest thing I've ever had to do," she said.
But it's those five to six-year-old students that helped her through those hour-long treatments.
"I look to my kindergarteners for inspiration and hope because they are the brightest souls, and getting to teach for the few short years that I was teaching was the biggest blessing I could ever imagine," she said. "I am more than confident that I will get to be back in the classroom again soon.".
Baloy isn't able to teach now, as her medical treatment has taken over much of her day-to-day. Even away from the classroom, her students have showered her with love and well wishes.
"My kindergarteners all made me a whole bunch of cards," she said. "They have been cheering me on from afar. Their parents have been in such close contact with me, whether that was through sending me text messages, messaging me on Facebook, they send me videos of them.
"I know that every single one of my kindergarteners is rooting for me, to see Miss Baloy beat cancer and be back in the classroom soon."
As Baloy fights cancer to get back to her students, it's with an entirely new perspective. Baloy admits she wrote off some of her initial symptoms, thinking they were anything but cancer.
"Whenever I started getting stomach aches and whenever I started losing weight rapidly, I thought this was a gift from the universe in the weirdest way," she said. "I was so excited I was losing weight and I didn't mind that my stomach was hurting because that meant that I was thin."
But when the pain was too much, she learned just how serious her health was. Baloy said life expectancy in cancer battles like hers is typically 22-40 months.
"I spend a lot of time thinking about how much time I wasted being worried about how pretty I was," Baloy said as tears rolled down her cheeks. "How much weight I needed to lose to look a certain way and I feel so grateful to now have shaved my head and to wear my diagnosis proudly and to have never felt more beautiful than I do at 25 with stage four cancer.
"To embody being a teacher and being an advocate for women my age; to not just worry about how thin they are, to not just worry about how beautiful you are. The amount of strength that I have inside of me for this is something I did not know that I had. I am so thankful for this, in the weirdest way imaginable, I'm so thankful this happened to me because I had no clue how beautiful or strong I was until I was diagnosed with stage four cancer."
Because of the unknown root of Baloy's cancer, her treatment is modified accordingly. She's gone through one round of chemo so far, with more treatments ahead of her.
"For most types of cancer, you get a very specific chemo cocktail that is curated for you," Baloy explained. "If they can't figure out what kind of cancer you have like in my case, you start with a really general kind of treatment plan, a chemotherapy treatment plan. And you just go from there."
Baloy shaved her head on Sunday, saying it was needed and her hair was falling out in clumps.
"I like it! I think it looks good! I think I can pull off a shaved head. I feel empowered. I feel beautiful. I feel scared. I feel anxious and nervous, but I feel so lucky and blessed and loved by everybody in Tampa Bay," she said.
With a tough battle ahead, Baloy smiled and called herself lucky.
"Even with the stage four mystery cancer, I still feel like the luckiest girl in the whole wide world and I am so excited for the rest of my life."
The family has a GoFundMe set up to help cover medical costs. To view it, click here.
Malique Rankin is a general assignment reporter with 10 Tampa Bay. You can email her story ideas at mrankin@10tampabay.com and follow her Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages.