A BEAUTY influencer with two children has died from cancer after suffering from years of misdiagnoses.
Before her tragic death, YouTuber Jessica Pettway, 36, opened up about how traumatizing hospital visits affected her husband and young kids.
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On Friday, Pettway’s sister Reyni Brown confirmed that her sister had died on March 13 and said her “heart had never felt pain like this,” according to an Instagram post seen by E! News.
Brown described her sister as amazing, strong, and confident, and said that Pettway’s wisdom helped her become a better mother.
“Life will never be the same without her crazy laugh, pranks, or jokes,” Brown wrote.
“Losing a sibling feels like a connection between us was destroyed. I love you with all my heart.”
Pettway amassed hundreds of thousands of followers across multiple social media platforms for her lifestyle content on hair, fashion, and beauty.
The California-based influencer also shared pictures of her husband and their two daughters, and the girls also had a significant following of their own.
However, for the past couple of years, Pettway’s posting schedule became irregular and fans noticed she would go months without sharing anything on Instagram.
In July 2023, Pettway revealed that she’d been diagnosed with cancer after she nearly bled to death the year prior.
In July 2022, the influencer’s husband found her passed out from “intense vaginal bleeding” and she was taken to the hospital.
The doctor told her the bleeding was from fibroids, which are muscular tumors that can grow on the wall of the uterus.
She was able to stop the bleeding with treatments but still experienced extreme weakness and pain akin to childbirth.
One year after getting the fibroids diagnosis, another doctor told her that she had cancer.
A few days after sharing her health status, Pettway told more harrowing stories about how her struggles affected her family.
“The girls are too young to understand, yet they noticed the changes,” she captioned an Instagram post of her family smiling happily.
Pettway’s daughters would ask her husband “When is mommy coming home” and “How come mommy keeps going in the ambulance truck” throughout her turbulent treatments.
“Being wheeled into the ambulance and waving bye to my kids, only to see them crying for their mommy to stay home, broke me,” she wrote in the caption.
“And watching my husband break down in tears, was rough.”
Despite the struggles, Pettway and her husband stood strong and decided to pray for healing.
“The blessing we’ve been waiting for will blow our minds,” she wrote in the now-heartbreaking post.
Days after posting that update, Pettway, who was based in Los Angeles, said that she was moving back to Georgia to be with her family.
“I so needed this,” she wrote.
This announcement was the last post that she shared on her Instagram.
Pettway died on March 11 at a hospice facility in Griffin, Georgia, which is an hour south of Atlanta, according to her obituary.
Her funeral will be held on April 13.