A 27-year-old woman was told she had terminal brain cancer after a troubling symptom emerged — one that left doctors stunned when they uncovered the cause months later.

Paige Suisted, a young woman from Kiwi, New Zealand, was living a peaceful, ordinary life. She worked in a jewelry shop, did some modeling on the side, and enjoyed the simplicity of her daily routine. Then, one day, everything shifted. A strange symptom in her right hand marked the beginning of a terrifying medical battle. What doctors eventually uncovered left them stunned — Paige was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.

In April 2024, Paige was going about her usual life when she suddenly sensed that something was off. Her fingers on her right hand began to grow numb. Soon after, the numbness spread down her arm and into her legs.

In an interview with Daily Mail Australia, Paige explained that she visited multiple doctors, but instead of answers, she received a collection of conflicting and confusing opinions.

“My fingers just stopped working,” she said. “One doctor suggested I’d had a stroke but didn’t even admit me to the hospital. Another said it was Raynaud’s disease, and someone else put my arm in a sling. Every doctor told me something different.”

As her symptoms worsened and the conflicting diagnoses continued, Paige reached a breaking point. Feeling ignored and terrified, she finally called an ambulance and begged to be taken to the hospital so she could undergo real testing.

This time, someone listened.

At the hospital, Paige underwent a series of tests — MRIs, CT scans, and eventually a brain biopsy. The results revealed the devastating truth. She had stage-four astrocytoma, a highly aggressive and terminal type of brain cancer usually seen in children.

The tumor in her brain was the size of a golf ball.

“When they told me, I screamed and cried,” Paige said. “It was unbearable to hear. I have a younger brother and sister, and all I could think about was wanting to watch them grow up.”

Doctors understood immediately that time was their enemy. The tumor had already begun pressing against the nerves that controlled movement on the right side of her body, but removing it wasn’t simple. Specialists agreed that operating would be extremely dangerous.

“It was a fifty–fifty chance,” Paige Suisted explained. “Either it could help, or I could end up completely paralyzed — unable to speak or walk again. So we decided against surgery.”

Paige began radiation and chemotherapy right away. The terminal diagnosis, she said, “broke a lot of us,” and she genuinely believed she was “going to die.”

“At the beginning of chemo, it completely knocked me down. I wasn’t even aware of half of what was happening.”

Doctors were stunned when they saw her brain with no visible tumor
Paige shared her entire treatment journey on Instagram, documenting each step. Eventually, she went in for another brain scan — and what doctors saw left them speechless.

“In my most recent scans, there’s been nothing,” Paige told Daily Mail Australia. “This huge golf-ball-sized tumor that was in my brain… we can’t see any of it on the MRIs.”

Because she didn’t undergo surgery, doctors cannot officially declare her cancer-free; they would need to examine the tissue directly to confirm there are no remaining cells. For now, she has been labeled a “medical anomaly.”

“They’ve never had a patient respond like this,” Paige said. “Even they don’t understand how it happened.”

Today, Paige is embracing life again. She’s traveled across Europe and celebrated her 27th birthday on top of the Eiffel Tower.

“I just live each day now,” she said. “And I want to help other people.”