Little girl a ‘superhero’

MAT-SU — At just 3-and-a-half years old, Remedy Carte is already a superhero — and she has the cape to prove it.

“She likes to say that she’s always ‘Super Remedy,’ but she can be ‘Super Super Remedy’ with the cape,” said Remedy’s mother, Heather DeVilbiss. “When I call her ‘Super Remedy’ she calls me ‘Super Mama,’ and I like that.”

Remedy’s cape came courtesy of the charitable group Tiny Superheroes. The group, according to its website, donates capes to children “who exemplify strength and determination as they overcome illness or disability.”

That group will be featured on NBC’s “Today Show,” Oct. 1 and Remedy is included in the segment, DeVilbiss said.

If that name — DeVilbiss — is familiar, it may be because Heather is the daughter of Larry DeVilbiss, current Mat-Su Borough mayor. She, Remedy and her husband Josh Carte are Palmer residents. But since Remedy was diagnosed with pineoblastoma back in May, they have been in Seattle.

“She was actually visiting family in Juneau when they rushed her to the emergency room and did an MRI and found the first tumor,” DeVilbiss said. “I was on a flight from Anchorage to Seattle that night.”

She said that the tumors are in Remedy’s brain, but also all down her spinal column. As of Thursday, she was in the fifth of six cycles of chemotherapy.

“The chemos are working, all of the tumors are shrinking and some of the ones in her brain have completely disappeared,” DeVilbiss said.

That last chemo cycle will be followed by two months of radiation treatments.

“We probably have about another five months down here in Seattle,” DeVilbiss said.

But if you thought all of that treatment might get a kid like Remedy down, you would be wrong.

“She is unbelievable. She has the brightest, happiest spirit that I have ever encountered and she really keeps us going,” DeVilbiss said.

She keeps them going, she said, even though each new round of chemo has included another infection.

“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,” DeVilbiss said.

Remedy is the type of kid who runs up to people in the grocery store to talk to them, DeVilbiss said before launching into an impression of her daughter.

“ ‘What’s your name? Hi! I’m Remedy! How are you?’” she said. “She’s always been like that.”

This weekend, DeVilbiss said, she’ll get a chance to give back to the hospital that has been so helpful to her family. The Run of Hope Seattle is set to kick off on Sunday. So far, organizers proclaim, the run has raised $1.115 million in its four years of operation.

Team Remedy has 23 team members including family members, but also nurses, doctors and nurse assistants.

“We are hoping that Remedy will be with us on that day. She might still be in the hospital,” DeVilbiss said.

She said the run is close to her heart because not only does all the money go to the Seattle Children’s Hospital, it benefits the department treating her specific type of cancer.

“It’s going right to the department of the hospital that is saving Remedy’s life right now, so we’re very excited about it,” DeVilbiss said.

She said that living through the last five months has been eye-opening.

“Nobody wants cancer, but we are in such a great place and they are taking such good care of us here both at 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 said. “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 form everybody has been just amazing.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.