"I've known you since we were toddlers. I was there during your awkward seventh grade phase, your first kiss, your first heartbreak, that time you met Mark Wahlberg and told him he was aesthetically pleasing. And I'm here now."
A Cody Christian fanf...
Reyna Mason's Family Struggle With DIPG By: Louise Young
Just a few weeks ago, Reyna Mason [20] announced that she was going home to spend time with her dad's side of the family after the discovery of a tumor in Averi Mason's brain. Averi is one of Reyna's little sister, a triplet, who is only five. Since then, the diagnosis has come back and the tumor is indeed cancerous: she has DIPG, which is short for diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma.
DIPGs are highly aggressive and difficult to treat brain tumors found at the base of the brain. They are glial tumors, meaning they arise from the brain's glial tissue-tissue made up of cells that help support and protect the brain's neurons. These tumors are found in an area of the brainstem (the lowest, stem-like part of the brain) called the pons, which controls many of the body's most vital functions such as breathing, blood pressure, and heart rate.
Diffuse intrinsic pontine gliomas account for 10 percent of all childhood central nervous system tumors. Approximately 300 children in the U.S. are diagnosed with DIPG each year. The tumors can be found in kids of any age, it's most common between the ages of five and eleven. The tumors occur in boys and girls equally, not favoring one gender or the other.
Medical advances in the past 40 years have greatly improved the survival rates for children diagnosed with most types of cancer. For some cancers, the medical advances have been extraordinary. For example, the survival rate for children with acute lymphocytic leukemia has increased from less than 10 percent in the 1960s to nearly 90 percent today. Overall, the survival rate for children with cancer is around 83 percent. But these medical advances have done nothing for children with DIPG. Brain tumors remain the most common cause of cancer-related death in children, and DIPG is the leading cause of death from pediatric brain tumors. A child diagnosed with DIPG today faces the same prognosis as a child diagnosed 40 years ago. There is still no effective treatment and no chance of survival. Only 10% of children with DIPG survive for 2 years following their diagnosis, and less than 1% survive for 5 years. The median survival time is 9 months from diagnosis.
The Mason family [which consists of Liam and Caroline, Reyna, Keegan Hansen, Abi, Ameri, and Averi] hasn't said a lot about Averi's diagnosis. No treatment plans or anything else has been revealed to the public, but the Teen Wolf cast have all been tweeting their support of the family and even revealed that they're all donating money to helping find a cure for DIPG and to help the family's of the kids diagnosed with the vicious and fatal brain tumors.
Cody Christian [21], Reyna's best friend of over ten years and boyfriend of a little over a month, recently joined her and her family in Australia. Reyna was spotted on her way to pick him up at the airport and she looked exhausted, but the smile and glow on her face after being reunited with her boyfriend make us so thankful that he's there to comfort her and aid in anything they need. Her mother, Jena Maxwell, also joined them a few days after Cody arrived. Though we know that Jena and Liam divorced when Reyna was little, she had always eluded to her parents still being close friends, and that's obvious to all of us now: Jena, Henry, and Caroline are all very tight, as shown on Caroline's Instagram [carolinemason].
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I
f you'd like to learn more about DIPG, click here. To donate money to the cause, click here.
For the Mason family in particular, click here. T-shirts, hoodies, bracelets, and many other items are available with "#TeamAves" on them, in Averi's favorite colors: pink and gold. Tyler Hoechlin [29] is credited with designing all the merchandise and is donating 100% of the profits to the Mason family, all of whom he is very close to [including Caroline, as they share jokes about her leaving Reyna's father for him often].
Tweet your support for Averi and the Mason family with #TeamAves and help us raise awareness for this horrible disease!
RELATED ARTICLES
AURORA JENISEN DRUNKEN ESCAPADES
WHAT IS DIPG?
REYNA MASON AND CODY CHRISTIAN ARE THE KING AND QUEEN OF PDA
•••
a lot of that info was copied and pasted, i have no shame. does anyone want to know how much of the fic we have left?
