When doctors gave 14-year-old Dylan Mwaniki just eight months to live, his oncologist made him a vow – and four years later, she crossed the country to make good on it.
In 2022, the Kansas City, Missouri, teen was diagnosed with Stage 4 kidney cancer. The prognosis was grim. But Dr. Mary Austin became far more than his doctor over 52 weeks of chemotherapy.
“We made arrangements to grab a lunch together and he’s met my kids, and it just evolved naturally as a friendship,” Austin told CBS News.
The teen put it more simply. “She’s my partner in crime,” Dylan said. “I call her my second mom.”
On his darkest days, when there was real doubt he’d live to graduate, so Austin made him a deal.
“She just hyped him up,” his mom, Lucy Mwaniki, said. “Like, ‘I promise you if you keep going through with this and you can live, I will come to your graduation.’”
His dad, Paul, said that single vow flipped a switch. “Just that trick of saying, ‘Hey, I’ll make it for your graduation’ changed everything,” he said. “He just decided, you know, he has the will to keep fighting.”
And fight he did. Dylan is now cancer-free and a high school graduate.
There was just one hitch: Austin had taken a job at Seattle Children’s Hospital, 1,500 miles away, and his parents kept her graduation-day visit a secret.
So the moment she walked in, Dylan couldn’t believe his eyes, thinking logistics had put paid to her visit.
His parents believe that friendship helped save their son. Lucy’s takeaway came in three words: “Be kind. Be kind. Be kind.”
