Flying high in her final days
Aneliese Kay thought she had her whole life to own a pug, drink Moet and stay in a really fancy motel.
Then the Waikato 14-year-old was told she had three aggressive tumours growing in her spine, paralysing her from the waist down.
At first, doctors thought Aneliese had about a week to live – that was in December.
Not knowing how much longer she had, the Morrinsville teenager decided to write a list of all the things she wanted to do before she died.
Four months on, Aneliese has ticked off almost everything on her list.
She’s the owner of an adorable pug called Lollipop, she’s sipped Moet (and spat it back out), stayed at Sky City Grand, met Ed Sheeran, flown in a helicopter, had a room makeover and drove to Cape Reinga, stopping to eat an icecream at almost every dairy along the way.
There’s only one wish left – to fly business class.
In May, she’s going to Brisbane to celebrate her 15th birthday with her family.
Aneliese and her dad are going to fly business class on the way over, but on the way back, the pair will have to join the rest of the family in economy.
‘‘I’ve always been excited about travelling and wanted to see as many countries as I could, but I’m probably not going to be able to go everywhere I want to go,’’ Aneliese said.
‘‘My dad has always said everyone should fly business class at least once and I might not be here for very long, so I may as well do it while I can.’’
December was not Aneliese’s first brush with cancer.
In 2015, she was diagnosed with medulloblastoma, the most common type of pediatric malignant primary brain tumour.
‘‘I had been having headaches for like a week and they had been getting worse and worse every day.
‘‘We decided to go into the hospital because my eye was drooping.’’
Aneliese had immediate surgery to remove the tumour, followed by eight months of chemotherapy and 30 rounds of radiation.
The next 16 months were the best, Aneliese said.
‘‘I wasn’t sick at all and we went to Thailand, which was so fun.’’
On December 29, Aneliese spent the day jumping off ropes and bridges and kayaking at Waimarino Adventure Park in Tauranga.
She had a sore back when she got home, so decided to jump in the bath.
But when she went to get out, she couldn’t walk.
‘‘We went to the hospital and there was a bit of a delay getting the MRI and afterwards they said, sorry, there are three tumours,’’ mum Erika said.
The medulloblastoma had returned, only this time it was in her spine and there was no cure.
‘‘There had been absolutely no symptoms at all – not a sore back, no weakness, it was completely out of the blue.’’
Aneliese had had a scan at the beginning of December, which came out clear.
‘‘She had been doing so well, she was like a textbook case of how the treatment was supposed to work.’’
Aneliese was prepared to undergo treatment for the second time, but after one round of chemotherapy, she developed infections.
‘‘She was in so much pain when she was admitted, even a sheet touching her skin caused her pain while the doctors struggled to get her pain medication under control and she was like that for a whole month,’’ Erika said.
In nine weeks, Aneliese had around 12 blood transfusions.
‘‘The doctors said if we went ahead with the chemotherapy, she would become blood-transfusion dependent and it wasn’t curative, anyway.
‘‘It was just hideous, so she decided to stop treatment.’’
‘‘It doesn’t seem real,’’ Erika said, ‘‘like that’s what’s going to happen at the end. But then it happens to everyone, so if you’ve got time to live life to the fullest and eat as many burger rings and sushi as you can, then you’ve got to do it.’’
Aneliese is hoping to achieve stable disease status, which could give her two more years.
‘‘I don’t really think about it. I don’t think it will happen anytime soon and if it does, it does. There’s nothing I can do,’’ Aneliese said.
●➤ A Give A little page has been set up for Aneliese.