laurenmama
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2007
- Messages
- 13
After months and months of lurking around disboards (and at the nagging insistence of Bill Lin
) to get information for my upcoming MAW trip, I've decided to "come out of the closet" and reveal myself. We're a family of five: lauren, (28) bryan, (30) skyler, (4) evie, (7) and the wish kid himself, Robert (8). Our trip is scheduled for Aug 19th-Aug 25th and we will be staying at GKTW village, and we couldn't be more excited to be a part of this amazing vision of Henri Landwirth.
Rewind back to 2003, Bobby had been having high fevers every night for about a month or so. Numerous trips to the doctors brought no results. I never suspected it could be anything more than maybe the flu. His doctor at the time wrote me countless prescriptions for antibiotics (as many doctors tend to do these days) to no avail. He was starting to bruise all over his body (from dangerously low platelets) and had an enormous swollen lymph node in his neck.
The physician that was taking over for the former doctor saw Bobby, and recommended doing some bloodwork. The call came the next day,
I'll never forget those words: "I have some alarming news, there was leukemic cells found in your son's blood." I didn't know the first thing about leukemia, aside from kids having bald heads and looking quite ill. Needless to say, this was my worse nightmare. It turned out that he had high risk acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL), high risk, because of the huge amount of WBC present at dx. The next months were a blur of spinal taps, bone marrow biopsies, chemotherapy, infections, hospitalization after hospitalization. It was utterly heartbreaking to watch my beloved son being poked and prodded with needles, and witnessing the side effects of the chemo. I credit my faith in God with how I was able to get through it, without it, I do not how I would have made it.
I was first told about the MAW foundation while Bobby was undergoing his first bone marrow biopsy. I looked at the hospital social worker increduously and said "that's for kids that are going to die! granting their last wish before they die! no way am i doing that!" She then took the time to explain to me that MAW is there to give back a piece of childhood that the child has missed out on due to the illness. That made a little more sense to me.
MAW called me a few months ago and asked if Robert would be interested in sharing a wish with them. This was five looooong years after I went on that (misguided) rant to the hospital social worker. So we went for it, with Bobby choosing Disney and Sea World. (He is absolutely obsessed with fish, birds, dinosaurs, and the like, so I'll be needing advice on where I can find these things!!)
I'll try to figure out how to post pics soon!
The story is not over yet, but I know he will have a happy ending!
) to get information for my upcoming MAW trip, I've decided to "come out of the closet" and reveal myself. We're a family of five: lauren, (28) bryan, (30) skyler, (4) evie, (7) and the wish kid himself, Robert (8). Our trip is scheduled for Aug 19th-Aug 25th and we will be staying at GKTW village, and we couldn't be more excited to be a part of this amazing vision of Henri Landwirth. Rewind back to 2003, Bobby had been having high fevers every night for about a month or so. Numerous trips to the doctors brought no results. I never suspected it could be anything more than maybe the flu. His doctor at the time wrote me countless prescriptions for antibiotics (as many doctors tend to do these days) to no avail. He was starting to bruise all over his body (from dangerously low platelets) and had an enormous swollen lymph node in his neck.
The physician that was taking over for the former doctor saw Bobby, and recommended doing some bloodwork. The call came the next day,
I'll never forget those words: "I have some alarming news, there was leukemic cells found in your son's blood." I didn't know the first thing about leukemia, aside from kids having bald heads and looking quite ill. Needless to say, this was my worse nightmare. It turned out that he had high risk acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL), high risk, because of the huge amount of WBC present at dx. The next months were a blur of spinal taps, bone marrow biopsies, chemotherapy, infections, hospitalization after hospitalization. It was utterly heartbreaking to watch my beloved son being poked and prodded with needles, and witnessing the side effects of the chemo. I credit my faith in God with how I was able to get through it, without it, I do not how I would have made it.
I was first told about the MAW foundation while Bobby was undergoing his first bone marrow biopsy. I looked at the hospital social worker increduously and said "that's for kids that are going to die! granting their last wish before they die! no way am i doing that!" She then took the time to explain to me that MAW is there to give back a piece of childhood that the child has missed out on due to the illness. That made a little more sense to me.
MAW called me a few months ago and asked if Robert would be interested in sharing a wish with them. This was five looooong years after I went on that (misguided) rant to the hospital social worker. So we went for it, with Bobby choosing Disney and Sea World. (He is absolutely obsessed with fish, birds, dinosaurs, and the like, so I'll be needing advice on where I can find these things!!)
I'll try to figure out how to post pics soon!
The story is not over yet, but I know he will have a happy ending!
I am so sorry about your son's diagnosis but so happy that you are all going to have this wonderful MAW trip. You will all love it so much and you can get so much help from the WishTrippers.
You are going to have so much fun on your trip!!! 
Don't worry about a little weather. I always tell my kids when we get caught in the rain "The good thing is we're waterproof
" 
