Standing outside of her home and seeing how her 4-year-old son, Nick, was starting to get antsy, Katie Zadak gave in.
“Do you want to know who your surprise visitor is?” she asked.
“Yeah!” Nick said. All he’d been told was that someone special was visiting on Wednesday and the family had gone outside to wait in the driveway to see who it was.
“You’re going to see a police car and ride around in it,” his mother said.
The boy’s mouth fell wide open. “And catch a bad guy?”
Excited, Nick rushed inside to get a police car of his own. He pushed the toy car along the ground, explaining how he likes the red and blue lights. But the sirens are his favorite.
“Wee oh, wee oh!” he said. “Police cars go super-fast to catch the bad guys.”
Nick has been battling stage 4 hepatoblastoma, a pediatric liver cancer, for nearly two years. Last year, the boy spent 280 days at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford in Palo Alto, Calif., for treatment. But Nick stayed positive, Katie Zadak said, making best friends with the nurses who cared for him.
“He’s just the most positive, bright, wonderful kid,” she said.
The Zadaks don’t like talking about Nick’s prognosis and instead put their energy into making the most of every day. He’s run out of the tunnel at Husky Stadium and gone with his family to Disney World.
“We’re very focused on treatment and comfort,” Katie Zadak said. “We’re making sure he’s enjoying the most of life through this battle.”
And something Nick has always liked is the police.
His favorite member of the Paw Patrol, an animated TV show, is Chase, a German shepherd police puppy.
In December when the Zadak family went to see Winter Wonderland, the Christmas lights at Portland International Raceway, Nick’s eyes were glued to a handful of police cars that had their lights blazing, Katie Zadak said.
“He got more excited about the police cars than the actual lights,” she said. “He kept saying, ‘police car, police car.'”
Katie Zadak’s friend Dion Hess is the one who had the idea for the special visitor. He attended a Community Military Appreciation Committee meeting and mentioned the idea to Deputy Mayor Anne McEnerny-Ogle. She then brought the idea to the Vancouver Police Department, Hess said.
“(Hess) suggested that we do something like that and made some phone calls and here we are,” Katie Zadak said.
Before too long, three police cars pulled up in front of the Brush Prairie area house.
Excitedly, Nick and his family went outside to meet them. Nick counted the police cars: 1, 2, 3. And then the men who got out: 1, 2, 3, 4 Vancouver police officers.
“They came just for you because you’re so special,” Katie Zadak whispered to her son.
Even though the family lives outside of the city, the officers jumped at the opportunity.
“This is one of the bright spots of my job,” said Tyler Chavers, one of the officers who showed Nick the ropes of being a cop. Chavers and the other three officers are neighborhood police officers, so their special trip didn’t disrupt patrol officers responding to emergency calls.
“It’s just neat to see them so excited … seeing them light up,” he said.
Nick spent about an hour hanging out with the officers. He spelled out P-O-L-I-C-E written on the side of the cars, played with a set of handcuffs and talked on the radio. Sitting in his mother’s lap, he got to take a ride around the neighborhood and even got to turn on the red and blue lights.
When it was time for them to go, Nick gave each officer a high-five or fist bump.
Waving from his driveway, Nick sent them off with final words of encouragement: “Go get ’em!”
