Orlando 7-year-old celebrates beating cancer by going to Eras Tour

MIAMI — Mia McBenton hovers over a Little Words Project display of friendship bracelets touching the ones that read “Resilience” and “Strong.”
The 7-year-old’s smile radiates, crinkling the red serpent face paint an artist applied moments ago on a Taylor Swift-themed Brightline train on Sunday. Her shirt reads, “A lot going on at the moment.” The hundreds of Swift fans behind her would never know the dancing girl beat cancer 22 days ago.
“It was a huge relief,” her mom, Kristen McBenton, says. “My whole goal when I found out was to make it like as small potatoes as possible for her and keep life normal.”
Mia was diagnosed with optic pathway glioma, a slow-growing brain tumor on an optic nerve. She completed a year of chemo at the Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children in Orlando.
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“We thought we were going to have to do chemo for 18 years,” McBenton says. “Then we found a surgeon who said, ‘No, I can do this.'”
Dr. Paul Klimo Jr., a pediatric surgeon in Memphis, Tenn., successfully removed the tumor. As McBenton tells the story, Mia shows off a friendship bracelet that reads, “Curse you Toast.”
“When Mia was first diagnosed, we named the tumor Toast,” McBenton says. “And (Mia) would shake her fist and say, ‘Curse you, Toast.'”
Her wrists are filled with friendship bracelets. The mom and daughter did not plan on going to the Eras Tour. And they didn’t know about the trip until they met TikTok influencer Zachery Derenowski at a Dollar Tree parking lot on Saturday night. She was told by a friend to meet him.
“I thought that he was maybe giving us tickets to like a dance party, but that was it,” McBenton says. She had to take a moment to process that the tickets were real. “I froze. I was sweating like, ‘Is this really happening?'”
Derenowski, known as MD Motivator, is well-known on Instagram (with more than 5 million followers) and TikTok (with more than 19 million followers). He started his brand during the pandemic when he was in medical school and wanted to carve out a kindness niche on social media. He creates content making people’s days and offering them money or experiences. He’s never done a Swiftie-themed act of kindness until Brightline, higher speed rail service in Florida, reached out to him asking him to find a deserving fan.
He found Mia.
“We met last night,” Derenowski, 31, says. “I asked her, ‘Would you either take $500 or a mystery Taylor Swift bracelet…?'”
Before he finished the question, Mia chose the bracelet, which included a trip on a Taylor Swift themed train and two tickets to Sunday night’s show.
“She’s just a ball of energy and light and love,” he says, “and it’s an honor to get to know her tonight and see her have this once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
“I’m just so grateful for Zachery,” McBenton says. “He’s a good, kind human, and thank you to everyone who put this together.”
Mia will be able to hear the songs live in Hard Rock Stadium that got her through treatment and prepared her for surgery. She is most excited for “22” from “Red (Taylor’s Version).”
“When she was going into the OR for her craniotomy she listened to Taylor Swift,” McBenton explains. “She loves ’22,’ ‘Don’t Blame Me’ and ‘Shake It Off.'”
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