SAN ANTONIO -- When he's out of his element, 8-year-old Avian Gomez gets pretty quiet. He replies to questions with a head shake or a one-word answer.
But his shiny eyes and epic smile conveyed more than words ever could during his recent visit to Lackland Air Force Base.
Avian has an ependymoma, or brain tumor, and undergoes chemotherapy at Methodist Children's Hospital and at his home.
But on a recent chilly December day, he didn't resemble a cancer patient. Instead, he wore the same green uniform as Air Force reservist pilots.
He came to Lackland to take part in the Pilot for a Day program, a partnership between the base and the hospital that began last summer.
In August 2009, Maj. Bryan Carlson of the Texas National Guard's 182nd fighter squadron reached out to Jennifer Hipsley, director of Child Life Services at the hospital.
He wanted child oncology patients to escape their painful reality for a day by sitting in an F-16, getting to use the plane simulator and watching the planes take off.
"The purpose of Pilot for a Day was to be able to allow children who are in the local Methodist Children's Hospital to come out and experience being a pilot for a day and literally just to be able to take them out of that environment," Carlson said.
The first child in the program visited the base in October 2009.
Many visits later, Avian wasn't thinking much about his cancer. Rather, his head was high up in the clouds.
"I want to be a pilot because it's so cool to fly a plane up in the sky and I've never been up in the sky before," he said.
As a single mother, Priscilla Rojas said she does as much as she can for her son.
"He likes to go to Malibu [Grand Prix], Sea World. We go to the movies. We go to batting cages, which he really loves," she said, trailing off. Rojas said she fights for each day she has with him, and she wants Avian to enjoy life.
Rojas said she'd really like to take Avian to Disney World some day, but after his day with pilots, Avian had found the happiest place on Earth, right here in San Antonio.
