Super Tyce clobbers cancer

Running through his house with arms flailing, little Tyce Fuqua demonstrated the joy that comes with being released from the shackles of cancer.

"I'm free! I'm free! I'm free!" the 5-year-old exclaimed Tuesday afternoon as he wiggled and danced through the kitchen and front room. "I'm free!"

Tyce, of Hayden, was diagnosed with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a quickly progressing blood cancer, when he was only 2 and a half. His grandma, registered nurse Julie Crandall, had noticed lymph nodes on both sides of his neck were swollen. Tyce's mom and dad, Stacy and Keith Fuqua, brought him to the doctor that Saturday and were given antibiotics for the boy.

"They said, 'Come back Monday if it's not any better,'" Stacy said. "It wasn't any better on Monday."

She described the moment the doctor gave her the news no parent wants to hear.

"We got a phone call from our pediatrician saying, 'We're not positive, but it looks like leukemia or lymphoma,'" Stacy said. "I could tell when he was talking to me, his voice was shaking and he was nervous. I could tell that this was a big deal."

With no family history and three other boys with no health problems, everyone was caught off guard by the diagnosis.

"It’s scary. Just the fear, you know. The cure rate for leukemia is pretty high, so my first thoughts were, ‘He can do this, we can survive this, but it’s going to suck,’” Stacy said. “‘We’re just going to have to walk through hell and back to get there, but we can do this.’ I felt pretty optimistic, but there is a certain amount of fear that you push away, the ‘What if he’s not one of the ones that makes it?’ There’s always that fear but you have to stay positive."

"She called me when I was at work," Keith said. "I made it down a flight of stairs in about two steps and drove 100 miles an hour to get home. It’s your kids, you know. You never want to see them hurt. You want to take that away from them and trade places with them if you could. You feel helpless."

Stacy said she was scared and it hurt knowing what her son would go through. They were in the hospital for two solid weeks after the diagnosis, and the first nine months of the three-year treatment process were grueling.

“Cancer is never fair, but I feel like it's especially unfair when it’s little babies," she said. "But the day after they started steroids and chemo, his lymph nodes were all down, his blood levels were already going down. He's actually been in remission since about week two."

Despite feeling like a pin cushion and spending lots of time hooked up to bags and machines, Tyce still wore a smile. He earned a superhero nickname as hospital staff fell in love with him and others were inspired by him.

"He was the king of the floor," Keith said.

“Everyone was wrapped around his little finger," Stacy said. "Somehow he became ‘Super Tyce,’ so that’s what they called him in the hospital."

"I do love superheroes," Tyce chimed in.

"Super Tyce" is a superhero to his friends and family.

"He always had a smile on his face, almost always," said Tyce's grandpa, Jeff Crandall. "There were times that most of us would have wanted to crawl into a hole, but whenever he could smile, he was smiling."

This week, they all have a reason to smile as Tyce is now done with his cancer treatment. His last medications were taken Tuesday and his chemo port was surgically removed last Friday.

The family celebrated with a big bouncy house party for Tyce and his friends, but a poignant piece of the celebration came when he rang the bell outside the infusion center in Sacred Heart's Children's Hospital.

"He has a gift of a happy, cheerful little disposition and that's what's gotten him through," said Grandma Julie, who reduced her work hours to help Stacy and Keith with Tyce and his brothers during the first year of treatment.

"He doesn't know what it's like to not have hips that hurt or to feel 100 percent," she said. "I'm so excited for him to know what it's like to be normal.”

Keith and Stacy both expressed their gratitude to the friends, family and church community that brought them meals and sent Tyce gifts and morale boosters during his treatments. Through Keith's former job, he was given gifts of footballs autographed by NFL players as well as an Iron Man photo signed by Robert Downey Jr.

“I just kept looking around going, ‘There’s so much good in the world,'" Stacy said. "You hear about all the bad stuff and then something like this happens and you see how much good there is and how many kind, selfless people are out there.”

Cheery and chipper, Tyce is looking forward to swimming, skiing and playing with his brothers. Although a slight chance for relapse exists, Stacy said, the majority of pediatric leukemia survivors do quite well.

After all, this is Super Tyce we're talking about.

"We’ll keep that in the back of our minds always," Stacy said. "Until there’s reason to worry, we’re going to celebrate and hope for the best."