A Los Angeles filmmaker, Grace Wether, was given six months to live by doctors. She was only 13. Ten years later, however, Wether is still alive, defying all odds, with doctors being shocked by her survival.
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According to the Daily Mail, Wether was diagnosed with a glioma, a brainstem tumor, back in 2015. This typically fatal cancer meant that she had only months to live, as the area affected controls vital functions of the body, such as breathing, swallowing, and movement in general.
Moreover, as per the outlet, this specific type of cancer has no treatment whatsoever.
“Because my tumor is so difficult to treat, I was able to leave the hospital and spend my ‘last six months’ doing what I love,” Wether said. “During those first six months, when I thought they might be my last, I made it a mission to do something creative every single day.”
And many creative things she did. She learned how to play guitar, she got into fashion, and she often visited museums with her mother. Her symptoms, quite present, became manageable over time.
Six Months, Ten Years
But then the six months came. Nothing happened. Months turned into years, and her survival turned miraculous, stunning the doctors who gave her a 6-month prognosis.
“My doctors can’t explain why I have survived,” Wether continued. “I still have my tumor, but miraculously, it has not grown.”
The now-23-year-old explained that given how the brain stem is so complex, doing a biopsy or surgically removing the tumors is impossible. Therefore, should her tumors start to grow, there is nothing else that can be done but wait for the inevitable.
“Chemotherapy and radiation also have a slim chance of working,” Wether added.
While she continues living with her glioma, Wether hopes that medical advancements eventually make her cancer treatable. However, according to her, “we still have a long way to go.”
For the time being, Grace Wether is not afraid of death, knowing that the cancer could begin to take her life at any moment.
“I try to live every day as an adventure,” Wether said. “No one is guaranteed any amount of time, brain tumor or no brain tumor, and this experience has made that impossible to ignore.”
Grace Wether is now a cancer research advocate, a speaker a best-selling author.