Paige Suisted, who is from New Zealand, “screamed and cried” when she was diagnosed with the most aggressive form of stage-four astrocytoma, a terminal brain cancer
A young woman diagnosed with a terminal cancer has found her tumour “has completely disappeared” — without surgery.
Paige Suisted, 27, has been described as “medical anomaly” after the golf ball-sized mass on her brain seemed to vanish. It had caused paralysis down the entire right side of her body, but doctors determined that surgical removal would be too risky.
Paige, a jewellery store manager, had planned for the end of her life when doctors diagnosed her with stage-four astrocytoma, a terminal cancer often found in children, in April last year. She 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.”
Surgery could have left Paige fully paralysed so she had radiation and chemotherapy in a bid to reduce the cancer’s impact and prolong her life. However, scans recently discovered the tumour had completely gone, leaving doctors in New Zealand baffled.
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Paige, who has always dreamed of becoming a mum, found her right-hand fingers began going numb unexpectedly last year. The numbness gradually crept up her arm, then down her right leg and eventually the young woman took herself to hospital.
CT scans, a lumbar puncture, MRIs and, eventually, a brain biopsy led to the diagnosis. Surgery was discussed but rejected in the end. Paige continued: “It was a 50–50 chance it would work, and a 50–50 chance I’d be fully paralysed, most likely not able to talk or walk again. So, we decided we weren’t doing that. The terminal diagnosis broke a lot of us down. I thought I was going to die and there’s nothing anyone can do.”
Despite the tumour’s extraordinary disappearance, doctors refuse to declare Paige cancer-free. The mass may be gone, but experts say microscopic cancer cells could still be hiding where scans can’t pick them up. She told the Daily Mail Australia: “The only way they could find it is cutting my skull open again. But then they say, why would we cut your skull open when we can see nothing as it is? I’m a medical anomaly.”
Now, with no tumour currently visible, and after completing a gruelling year of radiation and chemotherapy, Paige is slowly rebuilding her life. She still lives with right-side weakness but is improving every day.
The jeweller recently became an ambassador for the Cancer Society, spoke live on radio about her journey, and is building a YouTube channel to help others facing cancer, especially young people who feel overlooked.
