Doctors ruled out surgery for her ‘golf-ball-size’ brain tumor with only 50-50 chance— her one-year scan made them do a double take
Medical Science is believed to follow the rules. However, sometimes it doesn’t, and this case is the proof. A 27-year-old woman, Paige Suisted, from Kiwi, New Zealand, was living a normal life when she was told she had a terminal brain tumor. The doctors were stunned because her scans showed no visible trace of cancer; the experts called her case a rare medical anomaly. Suisted was working as a model and at a local jewellery store when she first noticed something was wrong. Her fingers on her right hand began to go numb. Soon, the sensation spread to her arms and legs, according to PEOPLE. Suisted shared that she received different opinions from multiple doctors, “One said I had a stroke, but didn’t even admit me to the hospital. Another said I had Raynaud’s disease, and one just put me in a sling. They all told me something completely different,” Suisted said.
She later called an ambulance and insisted on being admitted for proper testing after her symptoms worsened. For weeks, several CT scans, MRIs, and a brain biopsy were conducted. After analyzing the results, doctors delivered devastating news and diagnosed her with stage-four astrocytoma, a rare and aggressive brain cancer often seen in children. Talking to the Daily Mail Australia, Suisted said, “When they told me, I think I screamed and cried. It was so hard to hear. I have a younger brother and sister, and all I could think about was wanting to see them grow up.” Doctors found a golf ball-sized tumor pressing against the nerves that controlled the right side of her body. “It was a 50–50 chance it would work, and a 50–50 chance I'd be fully paralyzed, most likely not able to talk or walk again. So, we decided we weren't doing that,” she recalled.
She immediately began radiation and chemotherapy. “The terminal diagnosis broke a lot of us down. I thought I was going to die, and there's nothing anyone can do. At the start of chemo, it really shot me down. I wasn't even aware of what was going on,” she recalled. Over the next year, Suisted endured intense treatment and debilitating side effects. She documented her journey on her Instagram page @journey_through_cancer, sharing side effects.
Then, unexpected results arrived, which showed no visible tumor. “In my last few scans, there's been nothing there. This massive golf ball in my brain … we can't see any of it on the MRIs,” Suisted said. Doctors, however, could not declare her cancer-free without surgery. She said, “They[doctors] haven't had a cancer patient like this. They don't even understand it themselves. I just live my life every day now, and I want to help other people.”
According to a study by StatPearls found in the National Library of Medicine, Astrocytoma is a type of brain tumor that arises from astrocytes, which are star-shaped glial cells that support neurons in the central nervous system. It is the most common form of glioma; astrocytomas make up a significant portion of glial tumors and primarily affect the brain, although they can also occur in the spinal cord.