Living his best life
P.E.I. child thriving four years after leukemia diagnosis
KELLYS CROSS, P.E.I. – Ty Doucette reached many milestones while living in the hospital. His first birthday.
Learning to crawl.
Learning to walk.
Eating solid food for the first time.
His parents, Nichole and Dianna, dreamed of him spending his first summer at the beach – not undergoing chemotherapy for acute myeloid leukemia (AML).
Still, where he reached his milestones is not important for the Kellys Cross couple. What matters to them is that he lived to see them at all.
“As much as I am sad that we missed out on some of those things, I'm not really sad, because we could have not ever gotten to do those things,” said Nichole. “At least we get to do them now.”
In May 2019, Ty was seven months old when he was diagnosed with cancer. He went into remission that July; his parents now consider that day his second birthday.
Four years later, it's impossible to tell Ty's life was once hung in the balance, save for the photos of him in the hospital still on their living room walls.
He runs around the house chasing the family cats or sits at the living room coffee table playing with his Mario themed toys.
“No matter how dreary the outlook looks, no matter how much you think ‘is there gonna be a tomorrow,' it can turn into something like this,” said Dianna. “We have an amazing little boy now. He's perfectly healthy, he's smart, he's hitting all his milestones. Even on your darkest day, there always is a light.”
Ty's symptoms began around a month before his diagnosis.
A previously healthy baby, Ty came down with an ear infection three separate antibiotics failed to cure.
“It never went away and turned into a double ear infection,” said Nichole. “So, they were like ‘hmm, that's a little weird, let's try something different.'”
In the five weeks that followed, Ty cried more than he used to. Rashes and tiny red spots – which Nichole and Dianna initially thought were freckles – littered his skin.
“A lot of people said, ‘You guys are first-time parents, you're panicking about an ear infection,'” said Dianna.
When Ty took a turn for the worse, Nichole took him to Summerside's walk-in clinic. He threw up on the table, raising the doctor's alarm.
Ty had his bloodwork done. A few hours later, Nichole received an urgent call imploring her to go to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Charlottetown immediately.
“He said, ‘If you can’t get there now, I’m sending an ambulance to pick him up,” said Dianna.
Dianna worried he might have a contagious illness; Nichole, meanwhile, feared the worst.
“I talked to him afterwards and he said that Ty was pretty much ready to die,” said Nichole.
On May 23, 2019, Nichole and Dianna heard the word they never expected to hear about their seven-month-old baby: cancer.
“That night is like a blur after they told me that,” said Dianna. “I could hear him screaming, but I didn’t recognize any faces.”
TREATMENT
Following the diagnosis, the family rushed to the IWK Health Centre in Halifax, where they would spend nearly all their time for the next seven months.
“It might have been the most uncomfortable bed in the world,” said Nichole.
“But at least it was a bed in the room with him, and (we) could stay.”
Not long after starting chemotherapy, Nichole said Ty began improving immensely.
“He was laughing, he was eating, he was up and being a normal baby,” she said. “It was like, thank God. I know it’s poison going into your body, but thank God, because look at you, now.”
Despite seeing their son return to his old self, watching him go through treatment was hard for Dianna.
“You don’t ever expect to see those things for your children,” she said. “You don’t expect to see them getting blood transfusions on a daily basis and hearing all the words that aren’t supposed to be in your vocabulary.”
By July, Ty was in remission, but needed to finish his treatment to ensure he remained cancer-free.
On Dec. 23, the family learned they could return home for Christmas – eagerly packing seven months worth of hospital living up in just two hours.
“It was scary leaving the hospital too, right?” said Dianna. “Because now the care is in your hands.”
GIVING BACK
Ty’s hospital stay might be in the past, but his ties to the IWK remain; on June 3 and 4, his story will be featured in the annual IWK Telethon. It will be the third time Ty’s story has inspired people to donate and his parents could not be more proud to give back.
Although family in P.E.I. tended to their lawn, house and pets, they say that fellow parents and the IWK staff were their biggest support systems at a time they needed it most.
“(Ty) was like a bright light for everybody else that was on the floor,” said Nichole. “Everybody needed Ty snuggles, and everybody needed baby Ty, because he just brought happiness to the kids and parents.”
Ahead of the event, the Malpeque Bay Credit Union in Kensington, where Nichole’s mother works, spearheaded an online auction to help raise money for the telethon.
“It’s overwhelming,” said Nichole, adding that there was around $3,000 worth of bids by the second day. “People are amazing. P.E.I. is amazing.”