Initially, his mom, Stacy, wasn’t too frightened by the diagnosis. “I have a friend who's my age who has it,” she says. “At the time, I didn’t realize how rare it was to be an adult with cystic fibrosis.”

Thankfully, advancements in medical research have provided hope for Waylon and others with CF. Waylon’s mutation, prevalent among individuals with Irish ancestry, made him an ideal candidate for a groundbreaking drug study in Seattle. He joined the study when he was 3 years old.  

Being in the CF community, Stacy knew that Waylon qualified for a wish at that time, but Make-A-Wish still wasn’t on her radar for many years. Her hesitation in pursuing a wish for Waylon stemmed from her desire to treat both her children equally—her daughter, Billie Bea, had another medical condition that was chronic but didn’t qualify her for a wish. 

“Waylon had to do a lot of flying from Oakland to Seattle for years to be in the drug study, and his sister kind of viewed that as vacationing even though we’d go straight to the hospital; we weren’t sightseeing,” Stacy says. “But it’s hard to explain that to a six-year-old.” 

One day, when Waylon was 8 years old, he unexpectedly asked his mom if she’d heard of Make-A-Wish. Stacy was taken aback, wondering how he knew about the organization. “YouTube,” he replied, then asked if he qualified. When Stacy told him he did, Waylon burst into tears. 

“It surprised me because he’s not a crier,” Stacy recalls. She asked him if he was upset because his medical condition was so severe that he qualified for a wish. “He said, ‘No, I’m happy. This is the first time something good has come from the CF.’” 

Stacy decided to pursue the wish for Waylon with just one request—that Billie Bea be included every step of the way. Make-A-Wish obliged, making sure she was a part of the process and experience as much as possible. 

Waylon’s first wish idea was to visit the set of a Nickelodeon show, which was unfortunately canceled before the wish could be granted. His second idea was to go to Punta Cana, which initially surprised Stacy. “I asked, ‘How do you know what Punta Cana is?’”  

It turned out that Waylon had seen commercials for the Nickelodeon-themed resort in Punta Cana while watching the Nickelodeon channel at his grandmother's house. So, Stacy, Waylon, Billie Bea, and Waylon’s dad and Stacy’s ex-husband, Todd, were bound for the Dominican Republic to visit SpongeBob SquarePants in his pineapple under the sea. 

“I was happy finally something good was happening to Waylon because of cystic fibrosis,” said Stacy. “He was super conscious about not wanting to look like a sick kid, but when we had his wish reveal, we had a house full of kids and the Make-A-Wish volunteers came, they brought a cake, they brought swag from Nickelodeon, and it was a big deal. And for once he was not embarrassed about his cystic fibrosis. It was great.”