Make-A-Wish: Disney World stirs young Addie’s artistic gifts

WASILLA, Alaska (KTUU) - Every morning and every night, it’s the same routine in the Howell household.

Up before most others, 12-year-old Adah “Addie” Howell has to take a pill every time she eats and must set aside time for “lung chores,” daily breathing exercises that take about 20 minutes each time.

Addie and her family sacrifice time and energy to adhere to the same regimen every day, something the preteen said is the hardest part of living with Cystic Fibrosis, or CF for short.

“Just having so much stuff to do, having to always have pills whenever I eat and like having to do all of my lung chores in the morning and then I have to do them at night, too,” she said.

The Howell family has learned to adapt to life with Addie’s CF, but some days are harder than others.

“It’s heavy,” said Addie’s mom, Allison, inside the family’s Wasilla home in March. “Sometimes it’s very sad and other times we’re like, ‘Well, things happen all the time to all sorts of people.’”

“From my perspective, anyways, I feel like there’s almost like a grieving process that goes along with that because there is a type of loss that is there,” Addie’s dad, Ken, said.

Still, they have learned to find a happy balance, describing their daughter as any other typical preteen.

“Dance, music, singing, drawing,” Allison said about her daughter’s interests.

Some of Addie’s latest masterpieces include sketches of Disney’s Megara from “Hercules” and Roxanne from “A Goofy Movie,” inspiration that came from her Make-A-Wish trip to Disney World. It was Addie’s first time on an airplane and the first time her family was able to take a vacation together.

“To be the recipient of such a gift from complete strangers was huge. It changed my life. I see people differently,” Allison said.

”I loved just spending time with my family. Not having anything to do, just having fun times all together,” Addie said.

Since returning from Disney World, the magic of the trip lives on in Addie’s bedroom, where a Make-A-Wish shrine displays souvenirs documenting her trip.

“That kind of hope and joy, she has plans and she has plans to go places and we didn’t even see all of that until afterward when she was organizing this and that and some of her souvenirs and she’s taken up drawing portraits of princesses,” Allison said.

A wish trip turned into a dream because when Addie grows up, she now wants to work at the “Happiest Place on Earth.”

Help grant wishes for kids in Alaska by donating airline miles to the Million Mile Challenge, a partnership with Alaska’s News Source’s Morning Edition and Make-A-Wish Alaska and Washington.

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