Terminal brain cancer: Tauranga teen outlives nine-month life expectancy, returns to school

Tauranga teenager Chastiny Malone first discovered something was wrong when she developed a “severe” tremor in her right hand that left her unable to write or pick anything up. Doctors gave her a terminal diagnosis after a cancerous tumour “the size of a golf ball” was found in her brain. But a different treatment has had incredible results. Megan Wilson reports.

Janie Te Whata was told in January 2023 her teenage daughter had only nine months to live.

Chastiny Malone had been diagnosed a month earlier with glioblastoma – an aggressive brain cancer – in a part of her brain that was too difficult to operate on.

Malone, then 16, stopped going to Tauranga Girls’ College and quit her part-time job.

“Having that all stripped away and the unknown, that’s what really killed me,” Te Whata told the Bay of Plenty Times.

Sitting at their Tauranga home, Te Whata and Malone now appear joyful and hopeful for the future. Malone’s tumour has shrunk after she tried a different treatment and she has outlived her given life expectancy.

“It’s been an emotional rollercoaster,” Te Whata says.

Her daughter’s diagnosis was still terminal but she was “doing well”.

“I think it’s just such a privilege that we can get back into routine and school and the normalities of life because it hasn’t been like that.”

From hand tremor to terminal diagnosis

Malone developed a hand tremor in her right hand in 2022, which became “severe” towards the end of the year.

“I was in my exams. I couldn’t write, I couldn’t highlight, I couldn’t do anything.”

She saw a GP, who referred her to a neurologist.

In November 2022, she had an MRI scan at Tauranga Hospital, which revealed she had a mass in her brain. A biopsy was taken and was sent to specialists in Melbourne and the United States for their opinion.

Malone was discharged from the hospital but started having “banging headaches” that “wouldn’t go away for days”.

“I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t walk, I just had to lie down and sleep.”

She returned to Tauranga Hospital and had another MRI scan. It showed two ventricles in her brain, which contained fluid to flow around the brain, were being blocked by the mass.

“It was causing a big puddle in my brain.”

She was immediately taken to Waikato Hospital for brain surgery on December 7, 2022, and a shunt was put in to drain the fluid.

Later that month, she was told the mass was a cancerous tumour and that only 10 per cent of patients with this type of cancer lived for two years.

She started chemotherapy and radiation in January last year in an attempt to hold the cancer at bay.

Nine months to live

That same month, Te Whata received a letter saying Malone’s life expectancy was nine months.

During that time, the whānau travelled to Queenstown twice, courtesy of charities Make a Wish and the Hujlich Foundation, which support children with terminal illnesses.

Chastiny Malone with her mother Janie Te Whata and 1-year-old sister Riah. Photo / Alex Cairns

Te Whata said she did not tell Malone initially about her life expectancy because it was the “hope of the future” that kept her going.

“I never saw the nine months – even though it was there, we always just kept our hope alive.”

Mutation leads to more effective treatment

In March 2023, the biopsy results from Melbourne showed the tumour had a mutation.

“The mutation is what’s in melanoma, and melanoma is treatable,” Malone explained.

In April, she started taking two medications, trametinib and dabrafenib, normally used to treat melanoma.

“It targets the melanoma and it just hits it like a laser and disintegrates it,” Malone said.

The tumour that was once the size of a golf ball was now half that size, added Te Whata. “We just want it to shrink away to nothing.”

Malone will return to school this year for Year 13 after taking last year off.

She said she was looking forward to seeing her friends and favourite teachers again and going to the school ball.

“It’s been overwhelming ... everything’s kind of working out.”

Te Whata said her daughter could not get “too stimulated”.

“Headaches come on just like that ... she can’t put her brain under too much stress.”

Malone will have check-ups every three months at Starship children’s hospital and every month at Tauranga Hospital.

Surprise tickets for Juicy Fest

Malone wanted to go to Juicy Fest Tauranga but couldn’t because she was 17.

Te Whata surprised her on January 7 with guest passes to the hip-hop and R&B festival at Mercury Baypark after she messaged the promoter and told her Malone’s story.

Chastiny Malone wearing her signed T-shirt from Ashanti. Photo / Alex Cairns

Malone went backstage and met Bizzy Bone and Ashanti. She also got a signed T-shirt from Ashanti.

“I went in and I just didn’t even know how to act. What do you do when you meet a celebrity?”

She hugged Ashanti and the singer posted a picture of them on her Instagram.

Megan Wilson is a health and general news reporter for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post. She has been a journalist since 2021.