Most Likely to Inspire : Young Cancer Patient Is About to Realize His Dream: Graduation

With a band, speeches, and all the pomp of any high school graduation, a young man who has already beaten long odds just to survive is about to realize the latest in a string of extraordinary accomplishments.

Brice Dickerson, 17, who was diagnosed with a form of brain cancer in 1985, is scheduled to receive his diploma from Fountain Valley High School on Monday in a special ceremony arranged by one of his teachers and expected to be attended by hundreds of his friends.

After years of highs and lows in his battle against the brain and spinal tumors that threaten his life, Brice’s condition has deteriorated in recent weeks, making it difficult for him to walk and prompting his parents and teachers to plan the early graduation.

“Our feeling was just that he was expending all this energy right now trying to graduate and trying to keep up with his school work when what he really needs to be doing is concentrating on getting better,” teacher Ellen Saenz said recently, as Brice’s parents nodded in agreement.

“We just thought, ‘Why not graduate him now, while his health is such that he can enjoy the ceremony?’ ”

Saenz, who came up with the idea for Monday’s ceremony, said the Huntington Beach Union High School District quickly approved it because of the teen-ager’s condition and because he already had met the graduation standards.

But Brice himself leaves no doubt that he plans to take part in graduation with his class in June and ultimately attend Brigham Young University. Having defied the predictions of medical experts so many times, Brice says he has every intention of doing it again.

“In 1985, they told me I had six months,” he said quietly. “I’m still here.”

Dr. Paula Groncy, a pediatric hematologist-oncologist who has treated Brice since he was diagnosed, said he has lived longer with the disease than any other child in her caseload. Brice’s willingness to try a number of experimental chemotherapy treatments also has helped doctors learn about the effectiveness of the new drugs, she said.

But even more noteworthy has been Brice’s determination to live with his disease as normally as he possibly can, the doctor said.

“He is a remarkable young man, in his ability to keep up with everything going on in the world around him, in his participation in his church, in his school, for a long time in sports,” she said. “He sets an example for many of our other patients, really living his life to the fullest.”

The teen-ager’s courage in fighting the cancer, known as medulloblastoma, also has inspired his peers, who have held a variety of fund-raisers this fall to help pay his medical bills. Students in his ceramics class raised more than $1,000, a football booster group collected $600 and a campus anti-poverty organization came up with several hundred dollars more.

“What we saw happen was a real outpouring of affection and feeling for him,” said Janet Jue, his ceramics teacher. “The kids at Fountain Valley really know him and respond to him.”

Mike and Cindy Dickerson, Brice’s parents, said the financial and moral support has been invaluable. In recent months, they have been waging an often unsuccessful battle to persuade California Children’s Services, a state program that helps severely disabled children, to pay for the experimental drugs his doctors say Brice now needs.

“The kids and the teachers at Fountain Valley High School have been very, very supportive of us and of Brice,” Mike Dickerson said. “It has helped so much.”

One sunny afternoon last week, Brice leaned against the arm of a sofa in his family’s living room and talked about his friends, his goals, his love for school and sports.

His face was swollen, a side-effect of the steroids doctors have given him in an effort to shrink the tumors. But he smiled from time to time and spoke slowly and clearly of the special life he has led.

“Some of the kids I meet who have this problem, it’s like they say, ‘It’s too much trouble to try, to keep going.’ I look at it like, ‘How can you not want to live?’ ” he said.

Brice said he talks frequently with other young patients, especially those diagnosed only recently. He tries to counsel them about their fears and tells them how he has lived for more than eight years with his cancer.

“I was diagnosed so young; I was only 9,” he said. “These kids are 14 and 15, and maybe that’s harder. They’re already dating and they’re losing their hair and they’re worried about that. It’s pretty hard for them.”

Occasionally, he has spoken to medical or business groups, telling them about his long fight. One such speech, to a group from First Team Real Estate, where his father works, inspired the organization to work with the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Orange County and help fund wishes for 35 terminally ill children.

Brice has already received his own such wish, to go to the Rose Bowl, in 1988.

To keep himself motivated, Brice said he sets short- and long-term goals, one of which has been to graduate from high school. Over the years, even during bad times, he has also tried hard to stay involved with friends, keep up with sports news and attend classes when he can.

Although he could study full-time with a teacher in his home, until very recently, Brice has taken at least two of his classes on campus.

“You need to see people to keep yourself going,” he said. “Right now, I pretty much go to school for the social life.”

He told of a friend who recently died, a boy whose bedroom was equipped with everything he needed, including a television, a VCR and a stereo. “He never went out of his room,” Brice said.

In contrast, Brice attended Saturday’s UCLA-USC football game. In October, he watched Fountain Valley’s homecoming game, then went to the homecoming dance with Kelly Santa Cruz, 17.

Brice goes out to dinner occasionally with Bobby Gould, 17, a neighbor and close friend. And friends like Brandon Leimbach, 18, who met Brice through Little League when both were 9, frequently stops by his house to visit.

All spoke of Brice’s selflessness and ability to help them with their problems and concerns, even as he faces much more significant ones of his own.

“He’s always happy,” said Gould, who joined several others at Brice’s house one day last week. “He never complains. He’s just a very strong-spirited person and because of his situation, he has a different outlook. He looks for the real value in life and doesn’t get distracted the way the rest of us do.”

Brice shares a special bond with another friend. Courtney Castleman, 18, who has a rare blood condition that requires her to undergo monthly transfusions, said it has helped her to be able to speak in detail about illnesses, doctors, even hospital food with someone who really empathizes.

“He’s just so easy to talk to,” she said.

Many of Brice’s friends are planning to participate in the ceremony Monday at 7 p.m., at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 17500 Bushard St., Fountain Valley. Since the high school’s gymnasium was damaged by vandals earlier this year and has not reopened, organizers asked to use the church, where Brice and his family are members.