College student fights cancer with a smile




SHE’S A WARRIOR—Lacey Grace and her mother, Joy Funkhouser. Courtesy photo

SHE’S A WARRIOR—Lacey Grace and her mother, Joy Funkhouser. Courtesy photo

It takes real strength to greet each day with a smile, especially when life seems to be telling you it’s time to cry.

But Lacey Grace isn’t one for tears.

The 18-year-old Agoura Hills resident has been battling fibrolamellar hepatocellular carcinoma, an adolescent cancer that affects 1 in 5 million people, for the last four years. But where others might falter, she has flourished. Grace has won awards for writing about her experience. She’s given speeches. She’s a college student.

“I don’t see it as a curse; I see it as a blessing. I’m a completely different person in my own eyes, and I wouldn’t take it back,” Grace said. “It’s given me experience, and I’m so much more mature than people my age. It makes me want to propel forward. It doesn’t hold me back. I’m not a person that will sit and just watch things go by. That’s why I work and I went to school. I didn’t want to let it stop me from being me.”

Since her diagnosis at age 15, Grace has undergone four abdominal surgeries to remove multiple tumors. Her most recent operation was in October in Chicago. She spent a month there with her mother, Joy Funkhouser.

During their stay, Grace lost 20 pounds, had two blood transfusions, two rounds of chemotherapy, fertility treatment to preserve her eggs and a nine-hour surgery, Funkhouser said. They flew back on Nov. 7 and spent one night at home before the Woolsey fire forced them to flee Agoura Hills.

Funkhouser said her daughter is a warrior.

“She is a fighter, and she writes. She’s written a lot of powerful things. She won the Cancer Support Community’s ‘Dear Cancer, It’s Me’ essay (contest) two years in a row,” Funkhouser said. “There’s something within her that she knows how to draw from, something a lot of us don’t even know how to tap into as adults.”

Grace was diagnosed after a kick to the ribs during a soccer game sent her to the emergency room. Doctors discovered a softball-size mass on her liver that they thought was a mass of clotted blood that would have to be surgically removed lest it burst and put her health in jeopardy.

Once she was under the knife, doctors realized it was far more serious.

There are few studies about how to treat FHC because the disease is so rare and it responds to treatment differently than other forms of cancer, Funkhouser said. But even so, Grace hasn’t let the disease stop her. After she graduated high school she moved to Santa Barbara and took classes at the city college. She wants to be a behavioral specialist for children with autism.

As her treatments got more intense, she had to move back home, the only concession she’s made to her illness. She was able to transfer her retail job to a store closer to home, though she’s taken a leave of absence to focus on her treatments.

“While she was doing chemo and getting a transfusion yesterday, she got herself all registered at Moorpark (College) to continue school from home. . . .” Funkhouser said. “That’s her. She’s literally sitting there, drugs getting pumped into her and she’s got her laptop and she got it all set up.”

Grace’s friend Sydney Tarnowski started a GoFundMe campaign to raise $50,000 for the treatments. In one month, the campaign has drawn in over $35,000.

“Lacey has been tirelessly fighting for her life for the past four years, but if you didn’t know that she was suffering, you would have never guessed it,” Tarnowski wrote about her friend. “Her bravery is admirable. Upon her diagnosis, she didn’t wallow and ask “Why me?” Instead she said, “Try me.”

Grace said she won’t surrender to her illness because it’s not in her to give up, which she said comes from her family.

“It comes from a lot of genetics, I would say. My mom is so strong-willed, and then I have an older brother who’s been like my protector. I have three older brothers, so I guess it comes a little from there,” Grace said. “I’m just really glad it’s not a negative thing in my life and that I can overcome it with trying to be positive.”

Donations can be made at www.gofundme.com/a-warrioramongst us-lacey-grace.