Critically ill youth has heavenly flight as 'cadet for a day'

Katie Kerwin McCrimmon, Rocky Mountain News

Published May 5, 2007 at midnight

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COLORADO SPRINGS - Julian Willis recently asked his mom if the grass is tall and blows in the wind in heaven.

On Friday, 10-year-old Willis got a heavenly view of billowing grass, alpine lakes and snow- dusted mountains from a Cessna training plane at the Air Force Academy.

On the ground, Tom and JoAnne Willis smiled through tears as their critically ill son soared through the sky, alone with an instructor, and free for the moment of all his worries.

"He's in the service now," Tom Willis said, wiping a tear from his cheek.

The Make-A-Wish Foundation and the Air Force Academy made Julian a "cadet for a day."

The pair's only child wore a green flight suit and sported the patches, boots, aviator glasses and jackets that cadets wear. Cadets donate money to pay for the program and have hosted 22 children since it started in 2000.

Julian has always talked about being in the military or playing football and baseball. He was born six weeks premature, but as a child was rarely sick. He played some T-ball, and he loves jazz, art and cooking, like his dad, who's a chef.

When Julian went for a check-up at age 8, doctors noticed a bluish tint beneath his nails. They ordered blood work and sent him to Children's Hospital, where they found his oxygen saturation levels plummeted to 74 percent with simple exercise. Normal levels would have been in the high 90s.

Unbeknownst to Julian and his parents, he had been living with a lethal case of pulmonary hypertension.

"He has a very good possibility of being the kid on the playground who could drop over and be done," said JoAnne Willis, a sales consultant from Thornton.

The source of Julian's disease is a mystery.

The right side of his heart is oversized from working so hard to pump blood through constricted arteries to his lungs. He must wear a backpack, which pumps chilled medication into his chest 24 hours a day. The medicine has uncomfortable side effects and is not helping to replenish Julian's lungs.

To survive, he will probably need a double lung transplant and maybe a heart transplant. The fourth-grader has had to leave school and be tutored at home. For this gregarious, flirty comedian, sick at home can be lonely and frightening.

On Friday, Julian got to parachute into a different world. A foot shorter than most of the cadets, Julian nevertheless blended right in. His medication backpack was camouflaged inside his jumpsuit. No one could tell he was sick.

As he climbed into the cockpit of the Cessna, Julian took the controls and said, "I want to fly this thing."

That's just what he did during a 40-minute sortie over Pikes Peak and Cheyenne Mountain with civilian instructor Sue Ivison, who let him help with the takeoff, landing and some turns.

JoAnne Willis said her son has taught her lessons all his life.

"There's a reason Julian has been put here," JoAnne Willis said. "He's teaching us to be so humble. We hope to have Julian with us as long as we can."

She and her former husband have learned to focus on simple pleasures. Julian loves to cook with his dad, snuggle with his mom and hang out at church with his grandmother and her senior pals.

In September, a year after Julian's diagnosis, the family held their "First Annual Celebration of Life Party." The family plans to keep the parties going every September as long as Julian is beating his illness.

"We have today," JoAnne Willis said. " . . . Although it will be hard if we lose Julian, we will have no regrets."

McCrimmonK@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2502

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