Cancer tied to woman’s vaping habit since age 15 as she’s now given just months to live

Kayley Boda, 22, is shown in the hospital.She started coughing up a brown substance with “grainy bits” in January 2025, she said.She had been vaping since the age of 15.(SWNS)

The young woman has now issued a warning to others to be aware ofthe dangers of vaping.

Boda said she smoked a bit as a young teenager.She took up vaping after that. 

Then, “a few months after I switched from reusable vapes to disposable ones, I started coughing up brown, grainy mucus,” as SWNS reported.

TOURISTS MAY FACE STEEP FINES AND JAIL TIME FOR VAPES AT THIS VACATION HOT SPOT

“Doctors turned me away eight times with a chest infection….Then I started coughing up blood, sothey did an X-rayand found a shadow on my lung,” she added.

“They told me they were 99% sure, [since I was] so young, that it wasn’t cancer, so not to worry about it.When I got the results back, and they told me it was lung cancer, it felt so surreal.”

Boda said she was “very naive” before her diagnosis and thought that “something like this would never happen to me.”

She said that shehad surgery to removehalf of her right lung.

“After the surgery, I started chemo and I had a terrible reaction to it.I couldn’t lift my head up.I was throwing up blood.I was urinating blood.I couldn’t eat.I couldn’t sleep.”

VACATION HOT SPOT CRACKS DOWN ON VAPING WITH JAIL THREATS AND HEFTY FINES

She said that when she got the “all clear [in Feb.2026], it felt amazing, but just two months later I was told the cancer had come back, and I have 18 months to live.”

She added, “I’m 22.This isn’t meant to happen to somebody my age.”

“Stay off the vapes because they will catch up with you.”  

Read More → Healing after a heart attack: New injection could help reverse damage

She blames her cancer on vaping, she said. 

“My symptoms started a few months after I starteddisposable vapes, and there’s no lung cancer in my family,” she said.“I haven’t vaped for three months, I’ve made my partner stop, I’ve made my mom stop, I’m urging all my friends to stop.Stay off the vapes,” she continued, “because they will catch up with you.”  

When doctors did an X-ray, they found a shadow on Boda’s right lung.She was later diagnosed with lung cancer and has undergone surgery to remove the lower lobe of her right lung, as well as chemotherapy.(SWNS)

She said she’d been using reusable vapes since the age of 15 and began using disposable vapes a few months before her cancer symptoms started.

DISPOSABLE VAPES MORE TOXIC AND CARCINOGENIC THAN CIGARETTES, STUDY SHOWS

In November 2024, when she developed a rash all over her body, doctors said it could have been due to shingles, chicken pox or scabies, she told SWNS.   

‘Nothing worked’

“I got treated for all three, and nothing worked,” Boda said.“It got to the point where I was cutting myself from scratching so hard.” 

Read More → New study reveals leprosy existed in the Americas before European explorers arrived

A few months after that, she began coughing up a dark brown mucus, with “grainy bits, the consistency of sugar, in it,” she said.When the coughing continued, she visited the doctor’s office, but was told it could bescarring from pneumoniaor a chest infection, she also said.   

Boda is shown in the hospital.She was diagnosed with lung cancer and had surgery to remove the lower lobe of her right lung, as well as chemotherapy.(SWNS)

In September 2025, she had surgery to remove the lower lobe of her right lung, and the surrounding lymph nodes.During the surgery, doctors upstaged her cancer from stage one to stage threeafter finding cancerin six surrounding lymph nodes, she said. 

Following the surgery, Boda was unable to breathe properly and had to learn to walk all over again. 

“The oncologist said this is so rare.”

After finishing chemotherapy in February 2026, Kayley was given the all clear, leaving her feeling elated. 

TEST YOURSELF WITH OUR LATEST LIFESTYLE QUIZ

However, just a month after that, she began experiencing extreme chest pains and was told by doctors she had a pleural effusion — a build-up of fluid in the lungs.She had the fluid removed, but when doctors tested it, they discovered her cancer had returned to the pleural lining of her lungs, giving her 18 months to live. 

“The oncologist said this is so rare, and usually something they see inpatients that are 80 years old,” she said, as SWNS reported. 

Increasingly, vacation hot spots are enforcing strict bans on the use of e-cigarettes in public venues.(iStock)

Boda claimed that doctors were unable to pin her cancer to a specific cause — but told her that smoking and vaping definitely didn’t help.

Read More → Toyota joins hydrogen truck alliance push

Since her diagnosis, she has stopped andis urging others to stop, too.   

onelink.me/xLDS?pid=AppArticleLink&af_web_dp=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.

She’s hoping to raise the thousands of dollars needed for treatment to try to prolong her life, she said. 

com/health/vaped-one-year-almost-died" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the case of a Pennsylvania woman, 26,who said she vaped for just one year before her lungs collapsed.She was 22 when she took up the habit, she said in an interview. 

“Everybody warned me about it, but I didn’t listen — I wish that I did,” she said.

the risk of heart diseaseand stroke, as well as exposure to harmful heavy metals.