Five-year-old Rick Davidge has freshly cropped brown hair, a penchant for spider man and a love of soccer. When he can, he runs around with his classmates playing hide-and-go-seek. He eats his hot dog first and his broccoli last. He and his friends don’t even seem to notice that he’s missing an eye.
Young cancer survivor
Last year, he was visiting his grandma, Jodi Stevenson, in Anchorage when she noticed a white glimmer in his eye. She called up his mom, Nicole Davidge, and told her about the spot. Davidge, who had noticed the glimmer in the past months, hadn’t thought it was anything serious.
Stevenson told Davidge over the phone that she was conducting an experiment with him. As she moved a computer mouse on the computer screen, she covered Rick’s eye with the white spot in it. Next, she covered his good eye. Rick couldn’t see anything.
Rick was taken to Dr. Robert Arnold, an ophthalmologist, in Anchorage that day. After the visit, Dr. Arnold called Davidge in Fairbanks and told her that she and her husband needed to come down to Anchorage because their son’s eye needed to be removed the next day. It was removed June 4, 2009, a month before his fourth birthday.
Rick has retinoblastoma. Retinoblastoma is a malignant tumor that grows in the retina of the eye. Symptoms include the lack of the red-eye phenomenon in photographs, a white spot in the iris of the eye and sometimes a squint or painful redness of the eye. It is most commonly found in children under five years old because it is the deformation of one of the earliest cells, which disappear after a child’s first few years. If not treated, it can spread to the brain. Teenagers can contract retinoblastoma, but Dr. David Zumbro of Alaska Retinal Consultants says that it’s “very extreme and rare”
Chemotherapy began in San Diego for Rick. For reasons unclear to Davidge, the treatment couldn’t begin in Alaska, but for the rest of the five months, he continued treatment in Anchorage.
Dr. Zumbro says that chemotherapy is very common after the eye is removed. He said the tumors are “so relentless that you want to make sure you get all of them.”
Children who contract retinoblastoma are at risk for tumors to begin with because their tumor suppressor gene is gone. The chance the tumors will spread to the brain and other organs grows when chemotherapy is not performed.
At Rick’s last chemo session, Davidge was signing paperwork at Providence Hospital when she learned Rick was eligible for Make-A-Wish, since his cancer was life-threatening. Now he has made his way through the Make-A-Wish process, and is experiencing his dream come true.
Making a wish come true
At first, Rick didn’t really understand what the Make-A-Wish program could do for him. Now, “He gets that it’s his wish,” Davidge said.
Rick chose to go to Disneyland and play soccer with the Disney characters. Since Disney couldn’t provide soccer playing Mickey Mouses because of liability issues, the Fairbanks Make-A-Wish Foundation scheduled a party for all his classmates and friends — with a surprise soccer game with the West Valley High School soccer team.
On Wednesday, Fairbanks Make-A-Wish’s Jodi Bonacci said, “He’s so excited. I’m not sure who’s more excited — us or him.”
On Friday, at the party, it was clear who was more excited.
Rick sat amongst friends at a picnic table at Pearl Creek Elementary. The sun shone down on the school’s small garden full of sunflowers and pumpkin patches, and the bees buzzed around the children who happily decorated super hero capes. Rick took off a black and red, Spiderman-themed cape a San Diego hospital worker had made him, and asked to wear the one he decorated at school that day. Shortly after, he took off running in the garden, playing hide-and-seek with friends.
“He’s been excited today, ‘Is it my party? Is it my party?’” Stevenson said.
A few minutes later, the team of six West Valley High Schoolers dressed in their red and gold soccer uniforms approached the picnic area carrying a box as large as Rick himself.
“Something’s coming everyone!” A young girl shouted.
Rick climbed up on a picnic table, and the team set the box down next to him. He tore into the wrapping, and tossed balloons from the box into the air. He pulled out a bag full of goodies, and triumphantly held up an envelope with his Disney tickets inside. On Sunday, he and his family head to Disney Land.
He’s mostly excited to see Peter Pan.
“Maybe you’ll get to see Tinkerbell,” Five-year-old Anika Tapp said.
“No!” Rick moaned.
Luckily, Tinkerbell put no damper on the day. Rick led the procession of soccer players to the field and raced a ball back and forth, into goals at each end. The high schoolers were stunned by his talent.
“He is a soccer freak,” Davidge said. He’s been playing since age two.
Rick will be attending Cold Stone Creamery’s Ice Cream Social on Sept. 30. About 85 percent of the social’s proceeds will go to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Currently, four Fairbanks children are in the Make-A-Wish process, awaiting wishes. Fairbanks is part of the Alaska & Washington Chapter, granting wishes to both states and allowing kids from other states to fulfill their Alaska or Washington dreams.