Who's Cruising the Wonder? 2/1/09 (4day)

[camarks1234]

Hi Josiah!

I tried to explain a little in an earlier post:

We are booked for the Feb 1-5 cruise too and are super excited! It will be our 1st cruise ever and it's a Make A Wish trip for my 8 year old boy, AJ. We also have a 13 year old son, Austin who is very excited. (we all are). I have more info in my pre-trip report that's in my siggy.

AJ is my son and this is his Make A Wish trip. There is more info in my PreTrip Report too, there is a link in my signature.

 

[Josiah]

Christy,

Thanks for sharing those details. I didn't know what 'PTR' was until you mentioned it.

So I went back and read the PTR and one question: Is it still true that AJ's treatments will be completed in Dec as far as you know?

I'm sure you are all counting down the days!

I hope to see you on the cruise. As I've mentioned, our gkids are 11 and 8. I'm sure they'll have fun together.

 

[camarks1234]

We hope that Dec will be the last of his treatments. He will have the rest of the month and Jan. to recover a little bit. We won't know for sure if the chemo worked on getting rid of the tumor completely until the end of Feb. or March (that is when the decisive MRI determining NED (no evidence of disease) will be done).

So we just plan on living life to it's fullest, enjoying the cruise to the fullest, and just celebrating.

We are going out today to pick out the most beautiful Christmas tree. The boys have always wanted a flocked one and I've always nixed it because of the cost and the mess, but who cares anymore. I want this to be a magical holiday for them. (don't worry, we won't put it up until after Turkey Day)! LOL

I hope everyone here has a wonderful, happy and safe Thanksgiving!!!!

 

[Hanover]

We hope that Dec will be the last of his treatments. He will have the rest of the month and Jan. to recover a little bit. We won't know for sure if the chemo worked on getting rid of the tumor completely until the end of Feb. or March (that is when the decisive MRI determining NED (no evidence of disease) will be done).

So we just plan on living life to it's fullest, enjoying the cruise to the fullest, and just celebrating.

We are going out today to pick out the most beautiful Christmas tree. The boys have always wanted a flocked one and I've always nixed it because of the cost and the mess, but who cares anymore. I want this to be a magical holiday for them. (don't worry, we won't put it up until after Turkey Day)! LOL

I hope everyone here has a wonderful, happy and safe Thanksgiving!!!!

Christy,

Our prayers are with your family for a complete recovery for AJ. In February of this year our DS11 was diagnosed with lymphoma. We were sent immediately for chemo and radiation at Johns Hopkins where we later found out it was a benign infected mass in our son's chest. By August (after a few rounds of medication) it had shrunk to scar tissue. It's an extremely rare cystic tumor that had 6 different diagnoses and had never been seen at Hopkins. He was scheduled 3 different times for surgeries but due to the amount it shrunk between his 6 CTs, they decided to hold off and wait to see if it would completely dissolve. At this point they are following him closely to make sure it does not re -grow or become infected again. I know it's not what you are going though, but I can empathize with you and wish AJ the best.

 

[Josiah]

What powerful stories your families are sharing with us. I truly appreciate hearing them.

Is it okay with you folks if I send both your sons through our prayer chain at church?

Christy, when I told our 8 year old AJ's story, she immediately said, "Hey! AJ has the same name as the first letters of the two of us who will be with him on the cruise! Our grandson is Josiah, and our granddaughter is Alissa. She's looking forward to meeting him.

Hanover, are you planning to cruise w/us, too?

Debbie

 

[choco_latae]

Ok you guys, here is a picture for all those that hasnt cruised yet. I took this when my kids went on the cruise a few months back. I havnt been on it yet either. This will be my first cruise. So I love this photo. I keep it dear.

 

[Hanover]

What powerful stories your families are sharing with us. I truly appreciate hearing them.

Is it okay with you folks if I send both your sons through our prayer chain at church?

Christy, when I told our 8 year old AJ's story, she immediately said, "Hey! AJ has the same name as the first letters of the two of us who will be with him on the cruise! Our grandson is Josiah, and our granddaughter is Alissa. She's looking forward to meeting him.

Hanover, are you planning to cruise w/us, too?

Debbie

Hi Debbie,

Yes, we are sailing on the 2/1 Wonder. We just booked it about a month ago when DCL released the Fall Bounceback offer. It will be our 8th Disney cruise and we are really looking forward to it.

I'm Danielle and I'll be sailing with my DH Derek, DS11 Keegan and DS7 Brennan.

 

[camarks1234]

Our prayers are with your family for a complete recovery for AJ. In February of this year our DS11 was diagnosed with lymphoma. We were sent immediately for chemo and radiation at Johns Hopkins where we later found out it was a benign infected mass in our son's chest. By August (after a few rounds of medication) it had shrunk to scar tissue. It's an extremely rare cystic tumor that had 6 different diagnoses and had never been seen at Hopkins. He was scheduled 3 different times for surgeries but due to the amount it shrunk between his 6 CTs, they decided to hold off and wait to see if it would completely dissolve. At this point they are following him closely to make sure it does not re -grow or become infected again. I know it's not what you are going though, but I can empathize with you and wish AJ the best.

Danielle, I will be keeping your family and DS in my prayers. It's so sad, but until we were struck with this, I never realized how many sick children there are. It just breaks my heart. I will look forward to meeting you on the cruise!

Is it okay with you folks if I send both your sons through our prayer chain at church?

That would be awesome!

Christy, when I told our 8 year old AJ's story, she immediately said, "Hey! AJ has the same name as the first letters of the two of us who will be with him on the cruise! Our grandson is Josiah, and our granddaughter is Alissa. She's looking forward to meeting him.

They can't wait either! Woohoo! Feb 1st can't come soon enough.

I wanted to say happy Tday to everyone as well, a little late, but...

 

[Hanover]

Danielle, I will be keeping your family and DS in my prayers. It's so sad, but until we were struck with this, I never realized how many sick children there are. It just breaks my heart. I will look forward to meeting you on the cruise!



That would be awesome!



They can't wait either! Woohoo! Feb 1st can't come soon enough.

I wanted to say happy Tday to everyone as well, a little late, but...

Christy, I know what you mean. We were wrapped up in our own little world and were not prepared for what we went through at all. After getting over the shock if it all, we took one day at a time and fortunately had a great outcome. We are extremely grateful and know just how lucky we are. When I was in college, I had volunteered a lot for kids with muscular dystrophy but didn't know much about childhood cancers at all. My son had been the epitome of health up until February. He was in gym glass and all of a sudden had a tough time breathing when they were running sprints. He's extremely athletic and was in really good shape so he knew something was wrong. He had never been to the school nurse in 6 years so when I got a call from her I knew it was serious. It took a week of lots of blood work, xrays and CT testing for him to be diagnosed with lymphoma. I'm still quite angry his pediatrician told us in front of him and didn't leave room for error. Meaning, he didn't say "he might have lymphoma." He flat out said he had lynmphoma, was sorry and that we had an appointment already set at Hopkins to begin treatment in 2 hours. I thought we'd hear that he may have had pneumonia. The oncology doctors at Hopkins were wonderful and went above and beyond for us to bring his case to a panel of specialists and rule out diagnoses. They told us they didn't think the mass was cancer since there was fluid in it, but they weren't 100% sure and wanted to keep us in the unit to follow his progress/do surgery if needed. I think it was more difficult to not know what it was than anything. We just knew it was a mass the size of a grapefruit over his heart and out of his lung. Each visit we had to the peds oncology dept at Hopkins I was overwhelmed with the amount of kids getting treatment. What struck me the most was for the most part the kids were so happy and playful considering what they were going through/had gone through. Our son was one of the older patients and it just broke my heart to see the babies and young kids sick. Our son knows he's very lucky and for his 11th birthday in May, on his own he requested no gifts and instead asked for donations to the Hopkins pediatric oncology department.

Thank you for the prayer chain. I will add your son to ours too.

 

[ToodlesRN]

Ugh, both my son and I have been sick for a month now with this nasty cold. We both started some antibiotics so hopefully were on the mend. I guess it's good we have it now instead of later.

Should we start deciding if we want to do the gift exchange, Since were getting closer? If we do I was thinking that we can do it for both, kids and adults as there may be some adults only on the cruise? Let me know and I can start getting a list with everyone names going.

Christy and Danielle~ Thanks for sharing your personal life ongoings. I worked in a inpatient adult oncology unit for a few years and that was rough on the patients, families and nurses. I really hope that everything goes well and they both go into remission soon.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!

 

[Josiah]

I'm finally getting the picture of the gift exchange. I saw someone post about it on a trip report. I guess for me I was confused about what it all had to do with fish.

From what I gather, there is a hanger of some sort in the shape of a fish outside the door of the staterooms. (that's where the fish comes in). Those who wish to participate purchase a bag of some type, and hang it from the fish-shaped hanger. Then at some point, someone from our group drops some sort of small gift into the bag. We do the same with someone (or multiple people?).

Is that basically the idea?

Debbie

 

[choco_latae]

I'm finally getting the picture of the gift exchange. I saw someone post about it on a trip report. I guess for me I was confused about what it all had to do with fish.

From what I gather, there is a hanger of some sort in the shape of a fish outside the door of the staterooms. (that's where the fish comes in). Those who wish to participate purchase a bag of some type, and hang it from the fish-shaped hanger. Then at some point, someone from our group drops some sort of small gift into the bag. We do the same with someone (or multiple people?).

Is that basically the idea?

Debbie

Basicly thats right. There is a metal fish that is outside each room and you can hang pockets on it for others to put stuff into. You can either make them or buy them or whatever. Some people do hang bags on them. But here is a few that I have made. I havnt put the dowel rod in the top of it yet. But these are pockets. There is three in my family right now so I have three pockets in it.

 

[ToodlesRN]

Basicly thats right. There is a metal fish that is outside each room and you can hang pockets on it for others to put stuff into. You can either make them or buy them or whatever. Some people do hang bags on them. But here is a few that I have made. I havnt put the dowel rod in the top of it yet. But these are pockets. There is three in my family right now so I have three pockets in it.

Those look great! I got ours off of ebay from the lady (forgive me I forgot her name) who is also a Diser!

Are there any takers on who wants to do the gift exchange? If so let me know so I can get a list going with the names of everyone is your party and your room numbers.

 

[camarks1234]

We'd like to do it. Does anyone know if there is a pattern to making them? Or what I would search for, would it be fish pockets?

 

[Josiah]

We'd like to do it, too, but there is NO WAY that I have time to make one more thing....maybe after Christmas...anyway, I'm planning to check our local dollar store for something that might work. What else do we have to do?

BTW: We're having some trouble getting a passport for our grandson; long story short, we have to go through a legal process; we're hoping we're done by the cruise, but it's gonna be close.

Does anyone know if AJ had his last treatment? I thought it was to be in Dec.

 

[camarks1234]

Yep! We had our "unofficial" last treatment on Tues. I say unofficial because we won't know for sure the tumor is really gone until he has his next MRI in mid-Jan. It's a wierd feeling, being in limbo.

 

[ToodlesRN]

We'd like to do it. Does anyone know if there is a pattern to making them? Or what I would search for, would it be fish pockets?

This is the person who we bought ours from on Ebay and she is a diser as well. If you go to ebay and advanced search enter her in name in and you should see her auctions "gradysmommy"

 

[Mndisneygirl]

Hi all - I've been AWOL lately, but saw someone was interested in where to get a fish extender/pocket thing. I was on Disney shopping online and saw a cute Mickey Christmas card holder and it's currently on sale for $12.99! It's got 5 pockets on it. I bet it would work.

I don't think I'll be able to participate in an exchange, but I'll keep an eye out for any of your extenders. We will hopefully have our door decorated- at least a little! We're in cabin 6081 if nothing changes.

 

[Hanover]

Hi Everyone,

We just got back from WDW late last night. We had a fabulous cruise and time in the parks. The parks were much more crowded than the last few Decembers, but manageable. On the cruise I got to meet a bunch of Disboard friends and Disney website founders/authors who were there for MouseFest.

We were in stateroom 6538 which was a nice location and had a really good stateroom host and meal servers. The weather was a tad chilly at sailaway--in the low 60's but was in the mid 70s in Nassau. We walked to the straw market with friends who were cruising with us (they hadn't been to Nassau before) and then took advantage of a half full Mickey Pool in the afternoon. My friend Beth and I went to the spa and had a massage/facial. When at Nassau, that treatments is $125 for the hour massage/facial, and then you get strawberries dipped in chocolate, champagne and an hour in the rain forest room. It was heavenly and a lot less costly than the spa on sea days. We had dinner at Palo which was wonderful. The day we were supposed to be docked at CC we were unable to do so after 2 attempts because of the currents and wind. It was overcast and sprinkling too. We ended up having it as a sea day and missed our Palo brunch since we had just eaten breakfast and didn't know that they would do brunch that day instead of the next day as scheduled. The following day (day 4) we were able to dock at CC and the weather was in the mid 80s. It was perfect!! The water was a little cold at first but it didn't stop anyone from swimming. The water play area was closed until the afternoon because of the tide, but luckily the kids were able to play on it a couple of hours. All of the shows were really good. They changed the kid's graduation celebration and unfortunately I don't think it's half as good as the old show, which always brought tears to my eyes. Overall we had a wonderful, wonderful time and can't wait to be back!

We did do the FE exchange and that was a lot of fun. I had ordered one for my friend's family about a month before our cruise from the person I got mine from on ebay (she said it would take a week) and unfortunately didn't get it until our cruise was over when we checked back into Animal Kingdom. They rebooked though so they'll be able to use it on their next trip.

The cruise director we had was Clayton and he was great. Feel free to ask any questions.

 

[Hanover]

Hi all - I've been AWOL lately, but saw someone was interested in where to get a fish extender/pocket thing. I was on Disney shopping online and saw a cute Mickey Christmas card holder and it's currently on sale for $12.99! It's got 5 pockets on it. I bet it would work.

I don't think I'll be able to participate in an exchange, but I'll keep an eye out for any of your extenders. We will hopefully have our door decorated- at least a little! We're in cabin 6081 if nothing changes.

I bought this one a couple of weeks ago for our Christmas cards and it's great. It would work out very well for an FE and I saw 2 on our ship being used as Fish Extenders.