ARLINGTON — Maddie Higgins was blindfolded as she approached a neighbor’s front yard, not knowing what to expect.
A 6-year-old girl with a rare form of brain cancer, Maddie has long wished to play in the snow.
She was about to get her wish, a chilling experience in the middle of July.
“It’s impossible!” Maddie said as the blindfold was removed. “It’s summer.”
Thanks to Emergency Ice, a Dallas-based company that does all things ice, Maddie was able to play in the snow Friday afternoon, building a snowman with friends and family.
“This is awesome. It made my day,” said Gregory White, a pastor and employee at the company, which turned 20,000 pounds of ice into snow.
Similar sentiments came from Maddie’s mother, Melanie Higgins.
“I’m amazed,” she said. “I’m just overwhelmed with emotion.”
Maddie has glioblastoma (GBM), an aggressive brain cancer that is common in adults but extremely rare for children.
“There are no treatments for kids,” Melanie Higgins said.
Maddie has already undergone two surgeries and more than 60 radiation treatments for the cancer and is being examined Monday for another possible tumor.
“We wanted to give her every experience she can possibly have,” Melanie Higgins said. “We are just making her happy.”
Her wish to play in the snow came true thanks to Kinsley’s Kure, a Haltom City-based nonprofit organization that assists terminally and chronically ill children and their families.
“We are trying to do everything we can on her wish list,” said Tina Brown of Kinsley’s Kure, which was created about three months ago.
The organization has also arranged for Maddie to visit a museum in Dallas and eat dinner at Reunion Tower, other items on her wish list.
On Friday, Emergency Ice began blowing the snow about 3 p.m., and by 4:30 Maddie was playing in her own winter wonderland.
She and her friends fashioned a snowman in the shape of a pirate and named it “Arrsa,” because that’s what pirates say, Maddie explained.
Asked how long she was was going to play in the white stuff, Maddie, wearing mittens and snow boots, replied: “Until it melts.”
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