On vacation in 2014, Kaycie Kraus, then 14, experienced a severe with an aura that wouldn’t dissipate. Her mom took her to the emergency room, and doctors recommended the family follow up with a neurologist, who ordered scans of her brain. The results felt stunning — she had a .
“(We) got an MRI, which revealed the pilocytic astrocytoma that Kaycie had in her midbrain,” Kristi Kraus, 53, Kaycie Kraus’ mom, tells TODAY.com. “It hit hard for us because there was no good choice for .
.. treatment.
” The tumor, pilocytic astrocytoma, is a common benign childhood brain tumor, according to the . In many cases, doctors can remove them. But Kaycie Kraus wasn’t a candidate because of where her tumor was located.
Devastated by the lack of options, the family learned about laser ablation, which would stop the tumor’s growth without risky surgery or numerous rounds of chemotherapy. A decade later, Kaycie Kraus and her family feel relieved they found a doctor that offered her this treatment and a healthy life. “There is still residual tumor there.
It’s not completely gone,” Kristi Kraus says. “But it’s inactive at the moment.” During puberty, Kaycie Kraus began experiencing excruciating migraines with auras.
“The migraines were definitely weird for me because they just came out of nowhere,” the now 24-year-old from St. Louis tells TODAY.com.
“I never had them before, so that was obviously scary.” The worst one hit while she was on vacation, and she avoi.
