BROOKFIELD, Wis. — An average evening at the Rice household includes Andy and Krista playing with their three boys.

From the outside, it’s hard to tell how hard of a year it’s been on them. Their youngest son, Owen Rice, has cancer.

“It’s been very intensive for the last 10 months,” said Krista Rice.

Krista Rice said the journey to find a diagnosis for Owen Rice was an emotional rollercoaster. 

“He had a mass at his 20-week ultrasound when I was pregnant with him,” said Krista Rice. “At the time, no one one knew what it was. We just knew there was something in his adnominal wall on his left side.”

After multiple visits to different specialists, the Rice family still didn’t have an answer. 

“When he was born, he went to the NICU for extra testing,” said Krista Rice. “Right away they did an MRI, ultrasound [and] biopsy to see what the mass was.”

The results came back and showed a benign tumor; the plan was to remove it once he was older. 

“He started getting very irritable and we could not calm him down,” said Krista Rice. “He was not sleeping at all. He was up for whole nights. Just really miserable. We took him to different doctors trying to figure out what was going on.” 

After further testing, doctors found the tumor grew in size. It was pushing on different organs, resulting in the need for an urgent surgery. 

“A month later, he stared getting irritable again and more scans show the tumor was growing again,” said Krista Rice. “At this point, the team wanted to start chemotherapy again because the tumor was growing so quickly.” 

After more testing, they received the official diagnosis: Owen Rice had a rare form of sarcoma called spindle cell rhabdomyosarcoma. He was only 10 months old when he was diagnosed.

“Terrifying to hear that it was actually cancer knowing what goes into treating that,” said Krista Rice. “Same time we finally had an answer and a path to follow to get him better.”

Owen Rice is going through maintenance chemotherapy until February. Krista and Andy Rice said they hope their soon will have a normal life again soon.

“He’ll continue to have scans every three months, or at least early on,” said Andy Rice. “You never feel complete relief because you always hope it’s gone, but you’re never sure. Once he’s done with maintenance chemo, it’s going to be a great day.”

The Rices encouraged other parents to advocate for their children, especially when they can’t speak for themselves.

“Keep trying to find the answer to what’s going on,” said Krista Rice. “It’s really hard because they can’t use words to tell us and we have to go off their body language and their normal cues from when they were feeling well. Luckily, we have our two older boys to compare to that. We knew this wasn’t normal for a baby.” 

While Owen Rice has gone through a lot, his family said he still manages to light up a room with his big smile and contagious laugh.