Cancer Teen's Courage I Won't Waste Time Being Sad

Unstoppable Aneliese is on a mission!

Aneliese Kay may be young, but the gorgeous Waikato teen has some wise words for other girls. “Don’t waste time worrying about the small stuff, have fun and always look on the positive side of life. Oh, and eat more Burger Rings,” says the cheeky teenager with her trademark grin.

Lovely Aneliese has packed a lot of living into her short life. She’s travelled to Thailand with her family, braved a canyon swing more than 100 metres above a ravine in Queenstown and swum with dolphins in Kaikoura. A keen MasterChef fan, she’s even fulfilled her dream of cooking alongside celebrity chef Josh Emett.

There’s a lot more the lively teenager wants to do in life, but at just 14, she’s tragically running out of time.

In 2015, Aneliese had a migraine-like headache all week and then woke with her eyes jerking from side to side. Doctors found a golfball sized tumour at the base of her skull and within 12 hours, she was in surgery at Auckland’s Starship Children’s Hospital.

“Until then, we thought cancer happened to other people’s kids or people we didn’t know in magazines,” says Aneliese’s mum Erika Kay, 39. She and husband Nick, 44, live in a bustling family home in Morrinsville with Aneliese and their three other kids, Louise, 19, Alyssa, 13, and Logan, 11.