RUMFORD — A 17-year-old Rumford boy with a life-threatening form of muscular dystrophy is enjoying “a little piece of heaven” this week at Pine Tree Camp in Rome.

Tuesday was opening day for Tyler Daigle, who has Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and many other children and adults with disabilities, spokeswoman Erin Rice said.

“Pine Tree Camp is a place where Tyler can be a child first and a child with a disability second,” Rice said.

He is now in his eighth summer of attending the six-day Pine Tree Society camp that serves 600 disabled children and adults each summer.

“I ask the counselors every year if they can help him go swimming at least two to three times, and they help him every single year,” Daigle’s mother, Sue Grace of Franklin Street, said.

“This is huge, because it is the only time that his legs are free. It is a little piece of heaven, it really is.”

At the age of 5, Daigle was diagnosed with the genetic disorder, which is characterized by progressive muscle wasting and weakness.

The disease gradually weakens the skeletal or voluntary muscles in the arms, legs and body. By the early teens or earlier, the disorder can also affect heart and respiratory muscles.

In Tyler, that time is now.

Grace, a phlebotomist at Rumford Hospital, said her son has just been diagnosed with cardiomyopathy.

“The disease is starting to affect his heart now,” she said. “It attacks the muscles, and the heart is a muscle, so he’s on some cardiac medication to give his heart a rest, and he’s losing upper body strength now, too.

“But, we don’t tell him that he can’t do anything. Whatever he wants to do, we tell him he can do.”

In April 2004 as a fourth-grade student at Rumford Elementary School, Daigle made Make-A-Wish Foundation wish history when he asked to meet sumo wrestlers. So, off mom and son went to downtown Los Angeles for the fourth annual U.S. Sumo Open.

Currently, Tyler manages the Mountain Valley High School baseball team, has his own library of books, is a political debater, and loves sports, especially the Red Sox and the Patriots.

Grace said her son, who is a high honors student, has the grades and wants to attend the University of Maine at Farmington.

But this week he reserves for Pine Tree Camp, which celebrates its 65th anniversary next month.

“Today, he said to me, ‘I’m going to where I feel normal,’ and that’s a big thing for teenagers, because you know how teenagers are,” Grace said. “They don’t want to stand out, they don’t want to be different. They want to be accepted by their peers.”

Tyler has “stood out” for a long time because of his use of a wheelchair, which drummed home the camp’s importance.

“He never really made any friendships, because he’s the only kid in town in a wheelchair,” Grace said. “So, it was a real self-esteem builder for Tyler. He felt like he belonged.”

Grace said Tyler was always “a pretty secure kid,” but at Pine Tree Camp, he made friendships with other children who have Duchennes and other disabilities.

“So, he went there and he came home happy,” Grace said. “And for me — for the parent of a kid with muscular dystrophy — that’s big, because we’re very protective.

“For me to see that he was happy and healthy and well-fed and well taken care of, was a big thing, because he needed that social piece.”

At the camp, Tyler has a small nucleus of friends.

“It’s a good connection for him, and Pine Tree Camp is just a real positive place for kids,” she said.

Rice said the “anything but ordinary camp” is fully adapted to meet the special needs of its campers, so they can participate in activities that aren’t available to them during the course of the year.

These include hiking, playing baseball, kayaking, fishing, camping in tents under the stars and Maine’s only fully accessible tree house.

The camp’s staff “works hard to ensure that campers have an experience of a lifetime,” Rice said.

That’s why they’d like to reconnect with former campers and counselors to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the camp that changes lives.

For Tyler Daigle, that first summer was key.

“Tyler came home happier than when he left and that, to me, was the clincher,” Grace said.

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