ROYAL CITY — What’s better for a little boy than meeting one of his heroes? Meeting all of them at once at Disneyland.

“We went to Disneyland to meet Dude Perfect,” said Shaina Davies, whose 6-year-old son Parker was treated to the trip by the Make-a-Wish Foundation. “(Parker) met MrBeast, he met Mark Rober, and he got to meet some of the actors from The Avengers.”

Parker, who has been battling stage 4 cancer since September 2024, knew all those names from watching hours of YouTube videos at the hospital in Spokane where he was having his chemotherapy treatments. There wasn’t a TV available, Shaina said, but they had access to YouTube. A couple of Parker’s cousins had mentioned a group called Dude Perfect.

“We just watched hours upon hours of it,” Shaina said. “They ... do golf tournaments with the five of them (where) they can’t use a golf ball or a golf club, so one got a hockey stick, this one had to use a football. It’s just like some random fun games. It’s really clever,”

Parker discovered YouTube giants like former NASA engineer Mark Rober, who creates Rube Goldberg-style inventions; STEM educator “Science Bob” Pflugfelder; and MrBeast, whose channel is the most-subscribed in the world. So when the Make-a-Wish Foundation approached Shaina and her husband Cody asking what Parker would most like to do, meeting Dude Perfect was an obvious choice.

“They all met us there, and for two and a half hours they did (basketball) tricks with the kids and cheered them on,” Shaina said.

“I made two trick shots,” Parker said.

“I didn’t make any of (mine),” said Parker’s sister Kinsley, 9.

Wishes granted

The Make-a-Wish Foundation grants personalized wishes for children with life-threatening illnesses, coordinating appearances with celebrities of all sorts. This time, the foundation arranged a trip to Disneyland for 32 children, all with different wishes, which meant the children got to meet all of each other’s heroes. Parker had asked for Dude Perfect, but Rober and MrBeast were popular with other children. So were actors from the Marvel Comic Universe movies, including Captain America actor Anthony Mackie and Paul Bettany, who played the character Vision, Shaina said.

“They shut down a whole part of Disneyland just for the Wish Kids,” Shaina said. “The CEO of Disneyland and all of these really important people lined up cheering for the Wish kids as they ran out with their families. It was unbelievable.”

The whole family got to go, Shaina said: Parker and his parents were accompanied by Parker’s siblings: Kinsley, 11-year-old Brady and 12-year-old Brynlee.  All the rides were free, Shaina said, and so were the food vendors. The children didn’t even have to share rides with each other; each child and his family had rides all to themselves. The airfare was also covered; Alaska Airlines has an arrangement with the Make-a-Wish Foundation, Shaina said.

“Disney is the biggest wish granter for Make-a-Wish,” Cody said.

‘Long days’

Parker is so full of energy and good nature, you’d never know he’d spent more than a year fighting cancer. It didn’t look like cancer to begin with, Shaina said. At first it was just a cough that could have been a nervous tic or could have been allergies. As it got worse, they tried treatment for acid reflux and for asthma, and finally Cody got the doctor to order a chest X-ray.

“(Parker) had a tumor over half his chest size, and so he wasn’t able to breathe,” Shaina said.

As scary as that was, it could have been a lot worse. Parker turned out to have Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which is highly treatable and often curable, according to the Mayo Clinic. Parker was able to undergo chemo and immunotherapy treatment, but was able to avoid surgery and radiation.

“Royal (City) prayed for us like crazy, and then we got good news after good news after good news,” Shaina said. “(With surgery) he would probably have had to lose a kidney and his liver, but he didn’t have to lose anything because (of) the immunotherapy.”

That’s not to say chemo was a breeze, though. Besides losing his hair, Parker’s immune system was compromised, and he couldn’t go outside or play with other children, and his siblings couldn’t have friends over. The chemo treatments were done in Spokane, which meant Parker and his parents had to go over Sunday evening so he could start early Monday morning.

“He went from 7 o’clock in the morning until at least 5 o’clock,” Cody said. “It was long days.”

Even though he finished chemo in May 2025, Parker still has some side effects and may for the rest of his life. His body has trouble with temperature regulation, Shaina said, and he has recurring stomach problems. He still has to have regular checkups to make sure the cancer isn’t rearing its terrifying head again, but for now, it looks like he’s beaten it.

“They’ll never say ‘cancer-free,’” Cody said. “But they’ll say, ‘no cancer detected.’”

A world of support

Shaina was amazed at how their little town rallied around them, she said. The hospital gave Parker a stuffed monkey with a backpack, which sat in his seat at school when he couldn’t be there and went on field trips with the class. Other kids would send photos to Parker showing what the Monkey was getting to do. When he wanted to watch his high school-age cousin play football but he couldn’t be around other people for fear of infection, the athletic directors of both schools arranged for an empty spot on the opposite side of the field where Parker could watch safely. Brynlee played soccer, but her games were always on Mondays, so her team would make videos of the game. Other people made sure the family got a chance to eat.

“There was always dinner for us after treatment days,” Shaina said.

The Columbia Basin Cancer Foundation furnished the family with gas cards, to help with the cost of driving to and from Spokane, Shaina said. In fact, she keeps a lengthy list on her phone of all the people who have stepped up in the Davies’ time of need.

“We have felt so much support,” Shaina said. “I think sometimes because there’s so many scary and hard things going on that we forget how good the world is, strangers (and) people we know. I think that was probably the neatest experience for me, as his mom, to see how good the world is.”

    The Davies family meets YouTuber MrBeast at Disneyland last month. From left: Kinsley. Brady, MrBeast, Brynlee, Parker, Shaina and Cody.
  

    The Davies family meets YouTuber MrBeast at Disneyland last month. From left: Kinsley. Brady, MrBeast, Brynlee, Parker, Shaina and Cody.