24-year-old daughter with two unrelated cancers walking 3000km to fundraise

READER REPORT: When Caity Kane started working as an emergency call taker for Wellington Free Ambulance in 2018, little did she know that she was hosting not one, but two, separate primary cancers.

At the age of 20, Caity was diagnosed with Type 2 Papillary Renal Cell Carcinoma, a common kidney cancer in elderly people, but extremely rare in young females.

Initially overlooked during an ultrasound at the age of 14, her tumour luckily did not metastasise outside her kidney and was removed via a partial nephrectomy.

However, just six months later, after experiencing mild but persistent neurological symptoms, Caity pushed for a CT scan which revealed a very slow-growing, primary brain cancer, called a Pilocytic Astrocytoma. These tumours normally start growing from the age of 10 years old.

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The chance of having two unrelated cancers at once is extremely rare. You’d have more chance of winning Lotto or being struck by lightning.

Caity was genetically tested for a few specific gene mutations that might explain why she developed two cancers (and could result in future cancers), but results came back negative. 

Approaching the milestone of 21 years, Caity underwent a nine hour craniotomy to remove the tumour, but not all of it could be removed due to its very deep location on the brainstem.

As a result of her initial brain tumour and craniotomy, Caity also lost her entire left field of vision in both eyes, rendering her visually impaired for life.

Caity has been advised that her type of brain tumour is low-grade and will most likely grow back very slowly.

However, due to being part of the ‘astrocytoma’ family, research demonstrates that her residual cancer is likely to progress or mutate to a ‘secondary’ high-grade glioma, such as a Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM).

GBMs are extremely aggressive and incurable, with a mean survival of 10-15 months (with surgery and radiation).

Due to a multitude of factors, GBMs are complicated and present unique treatment challenges, and the deterioration it induces is both rapid and utterly devastating for patients and families.

 While Caity appreciates this could impact her future and prematurely end her life, she knows it’s not all about her.

GBM is the most common brain cancer in adults (with an incidence of 3.21 per 100,000 people), accounting for 47.7% of malignant primary brain and CNS tumours, and is on the rise in many countries.

Not one to feel sorry for herself or ponder too much on a rather uncertain future, Caity decided to walk the 3000 km-long Te Araroa trail, from Cape Reinga to Bluff, to raise awareness for the NZ Cancer Research Trust. She is fundraising to raise money to fund their research.

This trust provides grants to doctors and scientists conducting ground-breaking cancer research (including brain cancer) that will lead to improvements in the prevention, detection, diagnosis or treatment of cancer, including improvements in palliative care.

Caity would like to thank everyone who has donated so far and who will in the future.

Caity takes her future possible prognosis in her stride (literally) and has learnt to accept life’s challenges. 

She even says she’s glad that her medical issues happened to her and not someone else she loves, and feels extremely grateful for being alive, still having the other half of her vision, and all the valuable lessons that cancer and her visual disability have taught her to date.

Caity has adjusted to her visual impairment extremely well, but still often bumps into people or objects if she is not vigilantly scanning her blind side. She might even miss an incoming handshake or hi-five, which she finds both funny and embarrassing.

Caity started the Te Araroa trail from Cape Reinga in late October, and is currently hiking through Arthur’s Pass National Park.

Whilst navigating rocky, rooty and slippery trails with many steep drop-offs has been visually exhausting for her, Caity says the scenery has been truly magnificent.

Caity concedes that the trail has posed many challenges to date, such as endlessly sore feet complete with blood blisters, challenging river crossings, walking through knee-deep mud, and a trail that most of the time is not clearly marked (requiring a bit of bushwhacking).

Being a self-confessed, directionally challenged hiker (even with a GPS device) has also made for some interesting off-piste adventures and bush-inflicted wounds that one can only laugh about after a healthy dose of fear, a good cry, and a self-peptalk.

Despite the scares and battered body, Caity feels that she has thrived on the adversity and comradery that comes with such an adventure, and has experienced endless generosity on the trail from total strangers (labelled by Te Araroa walkers as trail angels).

Caity admits that tramping on her own through a Northland forest, while not overly wise, has provided the most adversity to date, testing her mental and physical strength to the limits. She states it is also what she aimed to achieve when starting out on this journey.

Caity thinks that the main lesson she has learnt on the trail is to live life more slowly, and take time to appreciate the more meaningful moments and beauty that nature has to offer. She has learnt that the world is filled with kind and generous people if you open yourself up to receiving help.

Other lessons she has learnt are just to be your true authentic self, and that it’s okay to suffer physically and emotionally, as sometimes you just have to embrace the crap and run with it until things gets better again.

And last but not least, don’t doubt yourself. Just do it!