Daisy's Make A Wish Trip - February 2014

[TinkerMom1983]

Hello everyone. I wish I would have found this site sooner, but I'm excited about being on here now. Well, we are currently at Give Kids The World for my daughters wish trip. I didn't find these boards until a few days before our trip began. With all the planning and packing I wasn't able to join or post anything before our departure. I thought it would be great to post nightly after each day here, but it's been a little difficult since we've been having so much fun! Today's our day to unwind at the village, so I'm taking this time to start posting. I know that if I wait until we get home to start posting it will take me some time to get it done, so I want to start now and try to post at the end of each day starting today. I'm going to start from the beginning, so here's our Pre-Trip Report (I'm new to this, but I've read around some and hopefully can get some decent posts in here. I apologize for my mistakes in advanced ).

First off, here's our list of characters:

Mom (Me) - I'm a Stay At Home Mom to the most amazing kids. Cooking, baking, and having fun with my family are just a few things I enjoy. I love Disney and all the memories everything related to Disney has brought to my life and my family.

Dad - I feel amazingly privileged to have married my best friend. He is the best father I could have ever prayed for to our kids. He's an amazing husband and we all love him so much. He is a Regional Manager for a company who works with Naval ships. He loves sports, the outdoors and he also loves Disney.

Daisy (7) - Daisy is our wish kid. She is amazingly funny, strong, brave and smart. She loves Dance, music. surfing and all things art. She loves all things Disney and princesses and wishing to go to Disney World was the easiest decision ever for her. She knew from the start what she wanted to wish for and she was so very excited!

Paxton (3) - Paxton is an amazing brother to Daisy. He always cheers her up when she's down or in pain and they have a very special bond. He is also our little hero. Not just medically, but as a great source of strength for his sister. He too will qualify for a wish, but since this trip is all about Daisy, I won't go into details on that right now. He is learning to surf and skateboard and he loves it. He loves sports, music and his sister. He is also a Disney freak and loves pirates and monsters and every boy aspect of Disney you can imagine.

So, that's our family. I will go into details on Daisy's wish and how she qualified in my next post.

Thanks for taking time to read about our trip. I will post more soon!

 

[TinkerMom1983]

Daisy was always a happy, very healthy little girl. She rarely ever got sick. The year was going great. She turned 5, started kindergarten and was loving it. Then things changed. 3 months after her 5th birthday.

I dropped Daisy off at school one morning. A few hours later I got a call from her teacher telling me to get to the school as fast as I could to pick her up. She was having extreme pain in her stomach. I got there as fast as I could and when I arrived they told me they had called an ambulance because she was in so much pain that she had passed out. I followed the ambulance to the local children's hospital where they started running tests. My husband met up with us there and few hours later we found out what was going on with our girl. An ultrasound showed a mass in her abdomen (adrenal gland) and a CT proved it to be a tumor. We were devastated. She was kept in the ICU until she had surgery to remove as much of the tumor as possible. It was a 6 hour long surgery and thankfully they were able to remove it all. It was a bit larger than they had originally thought, and although the cancer had not spread to her kidney, the tumor had grown around her kidney so they had to remove it. She was diagnosed with Stage 3 Neuroblastoma. She haled from her surgery and started Radiation followed by Chemo at CHOP. After 6 months of treatments, she was done and cancer free. He hair started to grow, she started to become stronger and she turned 6.

Unfortunately, only 3 months after she finished chemo (1 month after her 6th birthday), she began having stomach pain and was diagnosed with cancer once again. At this point, the tumor couldn't be removed. They did a biopsy to confirm it was cancer, put in a port and were able to remove 1/3 of it. She had 2 months of chemo which got the tumor to shrink by 75%. At that point she had surgery to remove the tumor and thank God, they were able to get it all out. She had 5 more months of chemo followed by radiation. She finished treatment in February and started to recover once again. Her hair started to grow once again, she turned 7, and had her port removed a few months after. It's been 1 year since she finished treatment and she's doing amazing ! She's gotten back to dance and is happy and healthy.

We're so proud of her and she's such an amazing kiddo!

 

[Mrs Doubtfire]

Hi and so glad you found us.

Daisy certainly deserves this trip and I am looking forward to reading your updates I hope you are all having a blast on vacation.

 

[TinkerMom1983]

Ok, so now some info on Daisy's wish.

I was familiar with the Make A Wish foundation, but we never really requested info until the second time Daisy was diagnosed. We were encouraged to apply at the hospital, so we did. Daisy (and the rest of us) were so excited! In June, 5 months after she finished treatment and a few days after turning 7, the amazing wish granters came to our home. They were so nice to both kids. They brought toys for both of them and balloons for Daisy. Both kids were super excited. They asked Daisy what she would wish for in different categories (I believe they were "I wish to go", "I wish to be", "I wish to have", and "I wish to meet"). Daisy's answers pretty much went as followed: "I wish to go to Disney World", "I wish to be at Disney World", "I wish to have a toy from Downtown Disney", and "I wish to meet the princesses at Disney World." You could say she was 99.9% sure about what her wish was. They chatted with her a little more and asked her again if she was sure this is what she wanted to wish for and she said "Yes. I wish I could go to Disney World and meet all of the princesses. That would be so awesome." And just like that, Daisy made her wish. A few days later I got the amazing call from her wish granter telling us her wish had been approved.

In August, after her scans revealed she was still NED (No Evidence of Disease), we got the much anticipated call with DATES!
February 9th - February 15th, 2014!!!!
We planned to extend our trip out of pocket for a few days (two more nights). We will be staying at the Pop from the 15th - 17th and then we will go back home.

Here's what I had planned for our dates -

Sunday: Travel and arrive.
Monday: Epcot and Hollywood Studios.
Tuesday: Sea World.
Wednesday: Day at the village.
Thursday: Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom (the big day for Daisy to meet princesses).
Friday: Universal and Islands of Adventure.
Saturday: Leave the village, check in at the Pop Century.

Saturday - Monday afternoon: No plans. Unwind with no planning and just going with the flow.
Monday night: Depart back home.

(So far, so good).

2 days before our trip began, Daisy had her MAW party. She dressed up as Rapunzel and the theme of her send off party was all Disney princesses, cool princess cake and all. She was so happy.

That's all for our Pre-trip report. Now for our trip report........

 

[TinkerMom1983]

We were so excited about Daisy's wish trip that it was so hard to sleep the night before our trip began. Daisy requested we watch Tangled before bed to help pass some time, so that we did .

Our day began at 6am. We were all up ready to get dressed and ready to go. At 7:30am, there was a LIMO at our door ready to take us to the airport. The kids (and adults) were so thrilled to be riding in a limo. We arrived at the airport where we found one of Daisy's wish granters there to send us off. We passed security and made it to our gate and we were on the plane before we knew it. We landed at 2:30pm where we were greeted by two amazing Give Kids The World volunteers. Daisy was so thrilled when she saw the sign with her name on it! The wonderful volunteers watched the kids while we got our bags and then they walked us to rental car pick-up. They let Daisy pick whatever car she wanted. She picked a Nissan Pathfinder because she said it could fit all our stuff . They gave us directions to the village and we were on our way.

The kids were yelling and screaming in excitement as we drove in and parked. They couldn't wait to get this vacation started, and neither could we! We made our way into the House of Hearts. It was gorgeous and there were so many kind people smiling and greeting us. They gave Daisy a plush Minnie and Paxton a plush Mickey and they were waiting to give us a tour of the village and of our villa. We checked in and off we went. There is so much beauty in this place. It really is designed especially for kids, and my kids love every single aspect of it. Our villa is amazing. Daisy yelled "We're staying in a castle!" as we pulled up into the driveway. It is just as amazing inside as it is on the outside. The welcome home sign brought me to tears. After we unloaded our bags we headed to the Gingerbread House for dinner. We felt so much love in this place. So many volunteers were there offering all of their help, carrying our trays to our table and making us feel like royalty. After dinner we stopped by the ice cream parlor and then the Enchanted Carousel before heading back to our villa. I unpacked a little and then it was time for me to go to orientation. DH took the kids to the Candy land Playground. It was Candy land party night and even though I missed it due to orientation, I hear it was a hit! Orientation was so great. It was so cool to learn about this amazing place and its history. After learning about the wonderful things we will get to do, I shed a few tears. I was so excited for my brave little girl and my boy who's had to take the back seat over these last few years to have some carefree, pure fun and joy! I couldn't wait to really get this vacation started. It had only been a few hours since we arrived and we were already on cloud 9.

Once back I bathed the kids, put them to bed and then put away the last of our luggage and hit the hay.

We had a great first day at the village.

 

[alexwick]

this sounds awesome! Enjoy your stay!