Community rallies for 3-year-old cancer patient

MAT-SU — Although little Remedy Carte is hundreds of miles away from home, Valley residents have an opportunity to help the spunky 3-year-old at a Saturday fundraiser.

From 5 to 8 p.m. at the Church of the Nazarene in Palmer, supporters can enjoy a silent auction, art, quilts, chain saw carvings, a cakewalk, harvest stews, fresh homemade bread and an ice cream bar for a suggested $10 donation. All moneys raised will be used to help Remedy and her family as the girl battles a rare form of brain cancer.

“She likes to say that she’s always ‘Super Remedy,’ but she can be ‘Super Remedy’ with a cape,” said her mother, Heather DeVilbiss, in a September Frontiersman interview. That story came after Remedy received a cool superhero cape, courtesy of the charitable group Tiny Superheroes. Shortly after that on Oct. 1, she was also featured on NBC’s “Today Show” as part of a feature on the group and its work.

Remedy and her parents, DeVilbiss and dad Josh Carte, remain in Seattle where she receives care for pineoblastoma, a rare cancerous tumor that develops in the brain and mainly affects children. In her case, Remedy has tumors in her brain and down her spinal column, DeVilbiss said.

“The chemos are working,” DeVilbiss said of the chemotherapy the child was receiving. “All of the tumors are shrinking and some of the ones in her brain have completely disappeared.”

She’s now undergoing radiation treatments.

“We probably have about another five months down here in Seattle,” she said in that September interview.

If the DeVilbiss name is familiar, that’s because Remedy is the granddaughter of Mat-Su Borough Mayor Larry DeVilbiss.

Saturday’s fundraiser will help the family offset some of the costs associated with the extensive treatments and extended stay in Seattle. Although Remedy has been away from home and in a hospital for a long while, she continues to maintain a childlike optimism that’s infectious, her mother said.

“She gets sick and she gets uncomfortable and she lets us know when she is miserable, but most of the time she is happy and cheerful and so joyful,” she said. “Nobody wants cancer, but we are in such a great place and they are taking such good care of us here both and the hospital and the Ronald McDonald House. The people are just exceptional. They have been taking really good care of us. There are a lot of blessings.”

She also said the family is grateful for the support it’s received from the Valley community.

“The way that people have rallied around us up north, and we’ve got family all over the world, the love and the prayers and the support from everybody has been just amazing.”

Contact Greg Johnson at 352-2269

or greg.johnson@frontiersman.com.

If You Go

What: Fundraiser for Remedy Carte

When: 5 to 8 p.m., Dec. 7

Where: Church of the Nazarene, 1951 N. Hemmer Road, Palmer

Cost: Suggested $10 donation

Info: For more information, visit caringbridge.org or call Jen