Hi,
We are a new wish trip family to the boards and I just found out on Friday that we are going to Disney on February 1st!!!
Well, we are still waiting for the doctor to sign the final approval so the plane tics can be reserved, but our Wish Coordinator told us that we have reservations at GKTW - so it seems like we're pretty set for the February 1st. Hurray!!!! I found a link to the dis boards from MDC and was so excited to find the Wish Trip Thread. I have read a great deal of it and it's great to know a lot of what to expect.
My daughters are HUGE Little House on the Praire fans, so we're going to call ourselves Mary, Laura, Ma and Pa. Actually we often do call ourselves that!!!
Mary is our wish child and is 3 1/2 years old. She was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease last May called Juvenile Dermatomyositis. It's a muscle weakening disease with skin involvement and sometimes other systems as well. She had a persistant rash on her cheeks that we went to see the dermatologist for thinking we would get a cream..... and then we got this diagnosis. It was only in hindsight that I realised she was moving slower - taking longer to get up the stairs and climb into her car seat. I had attributed it to just being two years old and interested in every piece of dirt along the way. She was also tired, but she was also giving up her nap at the time, so I just attributed it to that. In the two weeks between diagnosis and starting treatment, she got a lot weaker. The worst moment was when she put her foot up on the step and said "mommy, I'm stuck" and couldn't get up the stairs.
She had a port put in (as well as a muscle biopsy) and started on IV steroids as well as low dose chemo, oral steroids and a few other meds. She is immunosupressed and we are also limited in being able to go outside because the sun can flare her disease and her meds make her sun-sensitive - a double danger. Anytime we go out she wears sunscreen, sunhat and sunglasses. Fortunately treatment has gone very well for her and she has regained much of her strengh back. We are so lucky to live near one of the best doctors for her disease and have a wonderful home health nurse who did her treatments. It was Mary's nurse who told us about applying for a wish.
Laura is Mary's twin sister and has been a fabulous support to her sister. It
was very hard for her when Mary went for her MRI and surgerys in the beginning, because they had never really been apart. It was only in anticipation of the surgery that we did a quick Ma & Mara, Laura & Pa separate outings. Mary said to me then "Where is Laura? She's my best friend." Laura has become very scared about anything related to getting hurt during this time - it's so hard to understand what is going on with your twin when you are only three.
I'm Ma and I'm at home with the girls churning butter and such while Pa heads out to chop down the woods to build the log cabin (actually we are a little more modern than that LOL)
Mary and Laura are kind of unique Disney Wish Trippers because they don't actually know any of the characters - they had seen Pa's family movies of Disney World from when he was a child and that's why they wanted to go!!! They are very sensitive about scary parts of stories and so really haven't seen any of the disney stories. I was looking at a simple board book at the bookstore about the princesses last week thinking they might be intersted - however I knew they would be upset by Belle (a beast capturing her father), Cinderella (no mother), and Sleeping Beauty (they'd never touch apples again). They do know of the princesses and said they would talk to them, but were quite concerned about "guys with heads". Although I read in someones Trip Report that Frosty the Snowman was at GKTW Christmas
, so that might just interest them in meeting someone "with a head".
I think we are going to do two days Magic Kingdom, one day epcot, one day sea world and one day Universal (because they LOVE the Seuss books). We are also pretty excited about Sea World, since one of Marys other wishs was "Wish to be a Fish".
I learned so much from reading here, but still have some questions of course, mostly relating to the sun. Fortunately we are going (intentionally) at a lower sun time of year and we'll be well covered, but there are still some mid day times that Mary should be out of the sun. So here are the questions:
1) What is epcot like being indoors v.s. outdoors? Are the world pavillions (especially the kidcot stations) indoors or outdoors? Is The Seas exhibit indoors or out doors.
2) What are some good mid-day indoor activities at Magic Kingdom (I've already got small world).
3) What happens in line when you GAC says "wait out of sun"
4) It looks like the Carousel at GKTW is shaded - is that true?
5) I think the main shows we would want to see would be at Seaworld (least scary). Are there covered areas to see the shows? Are there some indoor exhibits?
6) From the seaworld website it looks like almost all the rides have a minimum of 42 inches - even the carousel!! Can that really be true??
7) Are all of the attractions at Seuss Landing in the sun or are there some that are not?
8) Does GKTW have bed rails? Will GKTW work with a low sodium diet?
Wow - that's really looong
. Thanks for reading and I'm sure I'll have more questions as it gets closer.
O.K. - I just posted and it's pretty funny with a name like OrangeRabbit to be "earning my ears".
I'm so impressed that Britney Spears took time to meet that little girl! It looked like those girls had lots of fun! Those videos always makes me a bit weepy, lol. 
Good job, Mary!! 
Or maybe MAW probably doesn't really ask her to? Bless her heart, though, seriously. I feel bad for Britney! She obviously has a good heart if she was granting wishes!!
Mary Claire plays power soccer (wheelchair soccer) with Lauren.
Thanks Maroo for starting this one! 
We'll see if she can convience him.... 
