Amber Woods seemed to have the kind of future young people dream about.
A rising singer with a growing fanbase, she had just returned for a second appearance on X Factor Malta and looked to be on the cusp of something bigger.
So when Woods, then 23, began suffering nagging stomach pain, cancer was the furthest thing from her mind.
She assumed it was acid reflux or a food intolerance – anything but the illness that would soon turn her world upside down.
But by mid-2024, the discomfort had not eased, and her health began to spiral.
The California native – whose real name is Amber Fischer – started experiencing fainting spells, collapsing as her whole body shook uncontrollably.
‘It kind of resembled a seizure,’ she told the Daily Mail. ‘I would just collapse, but my eyes would be open, and I’d start raising my hands and [moving] my legs – that’s what I’ve been told.’
Stranger still, even a few sips of wine would leave her violently sick. ‘I thought I was allergic to alcohol,’ she added. ‘So I stopped drinking.’
A rising singer with a growing fanbase, Amber Woods had just returned for a second appearance on X Factor Malta when she began experiencing health issues
The 23-year-old California native started experiencing fainting spells, collapsing as her whole body shook uncontrollably
As the episodes mounted, Woods sought medical help on several occasions. But each time, she left without answers.
‘They said I was suffering from syncope – which is the medical term for fainting – and there was nothing that could be done,’ Woods recalled.
Having read about the rise in certain cancers among younger adults, she asked doctors if this could explain her symptoms. She said the idea was quickly dismissed.
‘I asked, “Could it be colon cancer?” and the doctor said I was too young to even have a colonoscopy, let alone cancer,’ she recalled to the Daily Mail.
A colonoscopy – the in which a camera is passed into the bowel via the back passage – is considered the gold standard for diagnosing colon cancer.
In the US, routine screening is generally recommended from the age of 45, with follow-up intervals depending on results and individual risk.
But, Woods said, ‘I was told I shouldn’t worry.’
Then the symptoms began to pile up. She developed hemorrhoids and felt exhausted almost constantly.
She kept returning to doctors, but said there was always a simple explanation offered.
When Woods began suffering nagging stomach pain, she did not suspect cancer was the cause
Woods told the Daily Mail doctors repeatedly told her cancer was not the cause
‘They’d tell me, “It’s just acid reflux.” I’d say, “But I’m throwing up all the time.” And they’d suggest I stop eating spicy food and take [heartburn medication] Pepcid.’
Woods followed the advice – but her condition continued to worsen. By late November 2025, she was vomiting up to 12 times a day.
It could strike at any moment – in the middle of the night or during car journeys, when she would have to pull over.
Then, two days before New Year’s Eve, still battling relentless vomiting and crushing fatigue, Woods took herself to the ER. She was desperate to find out what was wrong.
This time, doctors suggested she might be pregnant. Then, after scans flagged worrying patches on her liver, she was told it could be parasites.
‘Thinking they’d found the cause, I called my friends and joked about it being why I was hungry all the time,’ Woods said.
But hours later, an ER doctor pulled her into a side room and broke the news: They had finally found the cause of her problems, and it was pancreatic cancer.
‘I was in shock,’ Woods said. ‘I was like, “What do you mean? This can’t be right.” I was looking at my mom and saying, “They must have made a mistake.”‘
Even worse, she was told the tumor in her pancreas was large – around 3in long.
The disease had spread and there were four small tumors around the size of paperclips in her liver.
Woods immediately asked what her chances of survival were and was met with evasive answers.
‘I kept asking them, “Is this terminal?” They told me, “Oh, we can’t exactly tell you yet, but it’s not looking good. It’s stage 4,”‘ she said.
She stayed in the ER overnight and was visited by the hospital chaplain who held her hand and said he was praying for her.
‘I found this hugely disconcerting,’ Woods said. ‘As I’d only just been given my diagnosis.’
Woods’s mother managed to book in for a second opinion with Dr Shruti Patel, a specialist at Stanford Medicine.
‘She was more reassuring,’ Woods recalled. ‘She told me that things didn’t look great if you believed what you read online, but that I wasn’t a statistic.
‘She said I had to keep in mind that I was just 25, and that we didn’t have enough stats on a 25-year-old with pancreatic cancer to know what’s going to happen because it’s so rare.’
Once seen almost exclusively as a disease of old age, pancreatic cancer is now rising fastest in younger adults, according to recent data.
A major 2025 study using US cancer registry data found pancreatic cancer diagnoses rose across every age group between 2000 and 2021 – but the sharpest increase was among younger adults aged 15 to 34.
Rates in that group climbed by more than four percent each year, compared with roughly 1.5 percent annually in those aged 35 to 54 and around two percent in older adults.
Pancreatic cancer is also among the most feared forms of the disease because it is often detected late, after it has already spread.
Around 67,530 Americans are expected to be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer this year, and about 52,740 are expected to die from it. In the UK, there are roughly 10,500 new cases each year.
It is notoriously hard to spot early because the pancreas sits deep inside the abdomen and symptoms – such as stomach pain, indigestion, sickness, fatigue, weight loss and changes to bowel habits – can be vague or mistaken for less serious conditions.
By the time many patients are diagnosed, the cancer has already reached nearby organs or spread elsewhere in the body, making surgery – the only known potential cure – largely impossible.
The odds are bleak. In the US, the five-year survival rate is about 13 percent overall, but falls sharply once the disease has spread to distant parts of the body. In the UK, five-year survival remains below seven percent, according to Pancreatic Cancer UK.
Risk factors include smoking, obesity, diabetes, chronic pancreatitis, heavy alcohol use, family history and inherited genetic mutations. But many patients have no obvious risk factors.
At Stanford Medicine, Woods was finally given a shred of hope when genetic tests showed her cancer was not the most aggressive type.
This opened the door to various treatment options.
For now, Woods is taking an oral chemotherapy drug designed to slow or shrink the disease. Doctors will assess in the coming months whether it is working. If the tumors respond well enough, surgeons may be able to operate. If not, she could be moved on to a second-line treatment.
The main treatments for pancreatic cancer depend on how advanced it is. Surgery offers the best chance of a cure when the disease is caught early enough to remove the tumor. Chemotherapy is commonly used to shrink cancers before surgery, kill remaining cancer cells afterward or control advanced disease.
Some patients also receive radiotherapy, targeted drugs or immunotherapy, particularly if genetic testing reveals specific mutations.
Woods told the Daily Mail the tablets she is taking have brought grueling side effects, including nausea, constipation and fatigue.
Some days she sleeps for hours and finds herself exhausted by early evening.
The hardest part, she said, is the waiting. Because her tumors were relatively slow-growing, doctors have warned they may also be slow to respond, meaning it could take several months before scans show whether the treatment is working.
She is also coming to terms with the discovery that genetics may have played a major role in her diagnosis.
After investigating her biological father’s side of the family, Woods learned there was a significant history of cancer.
She later tested positive for Lynch syndrome – an inherited condition that increases the risk of several cancers, including bowel, womb and pancreatic cancer. Her brother has also tested positive.
Knowing this now, she said, means relatives can be monitored more closely and future cancers may be caught earlier.
Despite spending much of her day focused on appointments, medication and recovery, Woods is determined not to let cancer define every waking moment. She is still writing music, trying to get outside and using her platform to urge others to trust their instincts when something feels wrong.
‘I want people to know that if you feel something isn’t right, keep pushing for answers,’ she said.
Woods discovered that genetics may have played a major role in her diagnosis
Woods credits her family and friends with helping her cope – cooking meals that are gentle on her stomach, joining her on daily walks and handling practical burdens when treatment becomes overwhelming.
Her two cats, she added, have become emotional support animals.
Woods admitted the statistics surrounding pancreatic cancer can be terrifying. But she refuses to see herself as a number.
‘I try to remind myself that I’m not a statistic.’
