- April 22, 2024
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Cameron Fulling’s 60th treatment for cancer was a time to party. The young survivor has been in and out of the hospital for the past six years, and he and his family decided to buy some cupcakes for an Aug. 28 party. So they stopped in to the Cupcake Café and met Theresa Tazewell, who has owned the place since it opened in February 2015, in Bunnell.
Tazewell remembers the day well. She didn’t know Cameron and didn’t know he had cancer until they ordered gray and gold cupcakes and explained it was because those are the colors for pediatric cancer and brain cancer.
And then Cameron piped up and asked if some of the cupcakes could have a fishing theme.
“I said, ‘Of course!’” Tazewell recalled. She showed him a potential design — pretzel sticks for the fishing rods and goldfish crackers for the fish — and everyone was happy, so they arranged for a time to come back and buy the cupcakes when they were baked and decorated.
“After they left, I was like, ‘I don’t think I can charge them,’” Tazewell said. “It just hits you, and God tells you to do certain things, and you have to listen.”
It wasn’t the first time Tazewell had decided to donate to a cause. She also made a free cake for Paul Lucente, a former Marine who was celebrating his birthday in April in hospice.
“We can’t do a heck of a lot of things for everybody, and I do wish I could do more,” Tazewell said. “If we can afford it, we do it, and if we can’t afford it, we just bite the bullet and do it anyway. I couldn’t let that boy’s family pay for those cupcakes.”
She said it makes her job more fulfilling. “I absolutely love it,” she said. “I was born to do this, and meeting people like Cameron makes my day so much better.”
She hears a lot of people’s stories as she works in the café. She said it’s sort of like being a bartender, only “more fattening and less sinful.”
Cameron’s family couldn’t be reached in time for publication, but his Facebook page, “Team Cameron,” gave the following update on Aug. 30, after his last hyperbaric treatment: “Today ends another chapter for Cameron, and he leaves for St. Jude on Sept. 18 to see if the treatments worked and to see what the next chapter brings. We can only hope that this will be a good one.”
To donate, visit www.gofundme.com/cameronfulling.
