Cael Studebaker and his mother Mia anticipating their flight. All photos by Greggory Moore.
Cael Studebaker was joyously impatient. His mother almost had to restrain him from scooting his walker out onto the tarmac, as the 7-year-old raptly attended to the progress of each plane taxing down the runway and flying overhead.
“He’s very excited. I can hardly keep him back,” said Mia Studebaker of her son. “He’s been waiting since last year, because we missed [the opportunity] last year because we were on vacation. But he’s been counting the days.”
This was not just another day at the California Flight Center, but one of two times each year when a handful of pediatric rehabilitation patients from Miller Children’s Hospital their families get to enjoy a healing and growth opportunity that differs from the daily grind of therapeutic work that is a reality for children with dealing with challenges like brain injuries, spina bifida, and neuromuscular disorders. And that opportunity is flight.
“When we feel you’re ready to take this kind of a challenge, then you’re invited,” said Mariana Sena, a recreational therapist at Miller’s who has organized the summertime flying events since 2001.
“This was started by an individual I knew, a friend who had a niece who was an avid pilot who died at the age of 17 of a brain injury,” Sena explained. “So we initially started this program just [for] individuals with brain injuries. But then we just felt that so many more kids could benefit from it, so we [offer it to] children with so many different diagnoses.”
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Cael being seated for his pending flight
Although at present Cael does not speak verbally, his sign-language insistence that he was first in line to fly did not go unheeded, and soon enough his mother and I were with him aboard the single-engine four-seater awaiting clearance for takeoff, with Cael seated next to pilot Marcel Deruise. (That’s one of the rules: the kids get to sit up front.)
Once aloft, Cael could barely contain himself, excitedly looking this way and that, pointing at the various aerial sights and enjoying the vibrations of shimmying of the little Cessna. Despite the language barrier, Deruise and Cael communicated effectively with ad hoc gestures, and before long Cael was actually flying the plane, executing a small variety of turns and gentle dips—an activity his mother did not realize had taken place until we returned to terra firma.
“He turns this thing like a pro,” said Deruise. “Nooooo,” said Mia with a disbelieving smile. “I thought you were kidding!”
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Cael flying the plane.
A physical therapist since before Cael was born, Mia Studebaker brought Cael to Miller’s Children’s Hospital three years ago because from her career experience, “I know the best places to go.”
Part of what she feels makes Miller’s so special is its series of such unorthodox therapeutic events, which also includes sailing, horseback riding, and SCUBA diving.
“These kids, they go to school, then they come home from school and they’re getting either speech or occupational therapy…you know, all kinds of therapy,” she says. “Then they go home and they have to do their homework. That’s it; that’s their life. And Mariana, she knows that their life is so busy with these therapies that she’s [chosen to] give them these opportunities to do [these activities], which is therapeutic for them. And it’s fun! […] Cael has so many toy airplanes. This is, like, his dream.”
Because the organizations and individuals involved donate their goods and services to the series (the California Flight Center provided three planes manned by Deruise and two fellow pilots volunteering their time and skill), Miller’s is able to make these events available to the patients and their families free of charge.
“We don’t want to parents to use the expense as an excuse not to come,” says Sena. “It’s getting here that’s what’s important.”
Sena also pointed up the value inherent to such events by providing parents with opportunities to commingle and share their experiences. “Everybody’s on a different level,” she says, “and it’s wonderful to network.”
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A happy pilot exiting the plane.
The benefit Cael received from his aviatic adventure will last far longer than the 20 minutes between takeoff and landing. Back in the hangar, Cael seemed all the more interested in the planes coming and going, shuttling off more children into their own skyward therapy. He suffered through his doting mother snapping pictures of him with his “first flight” certificate, then raced back toward the tarmac so as not to miss a moment of the aeronautics happening all around him. He had been up there, up there, and on some level it seems he will never come all the way down.
It’s fitting for Cael that the ASL signs for “flying” and “love” are nearly identical.