MONUMENT — 4-year-old Lucy Cadenas' family says she's a bundle of joy, making everyone around her laugh with an infectious smile. However, life has been anything but easy for her or her loved ones.
"We've had the ambulance at our house more times than people do in a lifetime," said her mother Janey Sprouse-Cadenas.
Lucy was born with a rare neurological disease that's caused her to have life-threatening seizures called hemimegalencephaly.
"At 3 days old, Lucy was diagnosed with hemimegalencephaly, which is a rare neurological disorder that causes the left side of her brain to be larger than her right," continued Sprouse-Cadenas.
After traveling around the country for the right medical care, her family thinks they've found the right surgeons at a UCLA hospital who could cure her permanently. However, that involves lots of expenses. After Lucy's family reached out to the community with help to pay for it, 8 hockey teams across the state stepped up.
"Because the hockey community is so close and has such a huge collective heart, as soon as you say 'hey charity tournament for whatever', everybody jumps in," said one organizer Shannon Daly. "I think in the first week we announced we would hold this tournament, all team spots were filled".
At the Monument Ice Rink, hockey players came together for an Ironman-style tournament, with proceeds going towards a nonprofit Sprouse-Cardenas created.
"Ultimately, we're looking to provide support to families to provide funding for them to really mentally emotionally physically be there for them and not just for hemimegalencephaly, because that is rare, but it's for rare families in general," she said.
She's looking forward to seeing Lucy live a regular life filled with her favorite hobbies like Soccer and gymnastics. The nonprofit, named after Lucy, is called Lucy's Warrior Foundation.
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