Melody Morgan is a 44-year-old seamstress and single mom to an 11-year-old son in Western Tennessee. In 2026, she was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer and began sharing her story on TikTok. As colon cancer rates continue to skyrocket among young people, Morgan spoke with Newsweek about what she wants people to learn from her experience, and how her faith and family have helped her through it all.
This is a thing that I say when I’m overwhelmed or upset or scared or in awe of God’s kindness to me, in the way that He uses my circumstance—in this case stage 4 colon cancer—for my good and for His glory. The first night in the emergency room was a blur, and one of those nights where you experience the full spectrum of emotions. I thought I was going in to get some IV fluids for a pesky stomach bug that wouldn’t go away.
A friend had to practically drag me there, because I don’t have time to go to the ER. She sat with me while I got the IVs and we thought, “We’ll be out of here in a couple of hours, feeling better!” She sat with me while they did some bloodwork, which I was hesitant to do, because I don’t have health insurance. She sat with me while a doctor said, “There’s something bigger going on here.
We need to do an abdominal CAT scan.” They did it, and that’s when they saw the mass in my colon and a mass in my liver. I was dehydrated and anemic; I had all these problems I had been pushing through. Problems that I had just chalked up to “middle age” and “being tired,” because who isn’t?
My friend sat with me as we MarcoPolo’d her husband to keep him updated—at the beginning of the evening it was all laughter and hot goss. By the end it was tears and, “I might have cancer.” They gave me a blood transfusion right away and kept me in the hospital for three days. It was zero to 60, right there.
It was three days of letting my church know, letting my small group know, feeling God’s comfort, and knowing people were praying for me and caring for my family in tangible ways. Church members and family members brought me food and watched my son and…loved me…in ways that my pride previously would not have allowed. It was three days of rolling around in the gradations of “I might be fine” to “I might die, and what will happen to my son?” I had to put my “God is sovereign” money where my mouth was.
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