“She really saw it as a personal challenge to test herself in this forum that she watched and loved,” her longtime boyfriend, Jason Hess, said in a phone interview on Monday. “She said going in that her main objective was not to embarrass herself. Clearly, she achieved that.”

Her fans would consider that a major understatement.

“This is easily the most compelling five-game champion in the history of the show,” Andy Saunders, who runs The “Jeopardy!” Fan site, said on Tuesday, before her sixth victory was broadcast.

After passing an online contestant test this year, Ms. Stowell, a science content developer from Austin, Tex., asked a producer if the show could speed up the audition process “because I just found out that I don’t have too much longer to live,” according to the show’s website.

The show records five episodes a day during set filming dates, and she competed in her first four episodes on Aug. 31 under considerable physical and mental impairments. She was nauseated that morning, her fever broke in the middle of an episode, and she was in so much abdominal pain that she took painkillers, Mr. Hess said.

The drugs delayed her reaction time — which happens to be among the most important motor skills for contestants on “Jeopardy!” She needed help getting up and down the stairs to the set.