Hi everyone! Long time lurker, sometime poster. Decided to do a TR partly for everyone but mostly for my own memory.
Quick(ish) backstory - Our 3yo son was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in May 2018. He was hospitalized in the children's hospital for about 2 weeks and started his treatments. During that time his port got infected with MRSA and my wife gave birth to our daughter in the hospital next door. Fast forward to July: After the first month of intense chemo & steroids plus antibiotics for the MRSA, he was in remission and the MRSA was gone. Fast forward some more to now and he's 80% of the time he's back to his normal self. We still have our bad days during the months, but it's nothing like last fall and winter when he was grumpy and lethargic most of the time.
Anyways, during our stay in the hospital the social worker assigned to us informed us Logan, our son, was eligible for Make A Wish. This was amongst the Mt Everest size pile of information we were inundated with and I filed it away in the back of my mind. I was more concerned with getting him healthy enough to go home and then keeping it that way. Sometime around September 2018 I got a call from the local chapter, Make A Wish of Central New York. They took our basic info and were going to assign us Wish Granters that would come meet with us soon thereafter. At this point, we told Logan about it and told him to star thinking about something he'd want to do or someplace he'd want to go. First thing he said to us was "Can we go to Mickey's house". Mickey Mouse Clubhouse was the first TV show we let him watch and he's been carrying around a talking Mickey doll since he became mobile. Mickey is in just about all the pictures we have of his stay in the hospital.
My knowledge of Make a Wish was minimal. I didn't know if there were 'tiers' of wishes based on how severe a child's condition was. We just told him if that's what he wanted to do then he just had to tell Karen and Megan (his Wish Granters) when they came to visit him. During this time, he was on and off steroids regularly and we knew when his good and bad weeks were going to be so we coordinated with Karen & Megan so that they came to meet Logan during a good week to save them having to see him at his 'worst'. When they arrived at our house, Logan opened the door and his first words to them were "Can I go to Mickey's house?". And that was that. The wheels were set in motion for a trip to Disney World. Karen and Megan told us there'd be about a year wait. Logan's sense of time passage isn't there yet so he didn't really knew what that meant but he was still super excited and it made the next couple rounds of treatments a little better.
Jumping ahead to mid March of 2019. A couple of days after Logan's 4th birthday my wife got a text from Megan asking for both of us to call her when we had a chance. That night we called and Meg told us they had a couple of cancelations. We could go to WDW either the first or second week of May! Both of us had a "holy moly" moment and said we'd get back to her after talking to Logan's doctor and making sure both of our bosses would approve the time off. Nobody had any qualms so we were booked to leave for Orlando on May 16th.
We had taken Logan to WDW once before in November of 2016 when he was ~20 months old. This trip was going to be very different. Not just because he was older and we now have 2 kids. We learned we'd be staying at Give Kids The World Village and we'd have a rental car. Neither my wife nor I had ever been to the World while not staying in a WDW resort nor had either of us ever had a rental car while there.
What came next was the most fruitful trips either of us had been on. There were stressful moments, sure, but when Logan saw Mickey for the first time on this trip, I was a blubbering mess.
Stay tuned for more...
@wdwmagic & @The Mom I hope you don't mind me pointing people to Give Kids The World's website to learn more about what they do and to learn how they can help out their cause if interested. If inappropriate to do so, let me know and I'll remove.
Quick(ish) backstory - Our 3yo son was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in May 2018. He was hospitalized in the children's hospital for about 2 weeks and started his treatments. During that time his port got infected with MRSA and my wife gave birth to our daughter in the hospital next door. Fast forward to July: After the first month of intense chemo & steroids plus antibiotics for the MRSA, he was in remission and the MRSA was gone. Fast forward some more to now and he's 80% of the time he's back to his normal self. We still have our bad days during the months, but it's nothing like last fall and winter when he was grumpy and lethargic most of the time.
Anyways, during our stay in the hospital the social worker assigned to us informed us Logan, our son, was eligible for Make A Wish. This was amongst the Mt Everest size pile of information we were inundated with and I filed it away in the back of my mind. I was more concerned with getting him healthy enough to go home and then keeping it that way. Sometime around September 2018 I got a call from the local chapter, Make A Wish of Central New York. They took our basic info and were going to assign us Wish Granters that would come meet with us soon thereafter. At this point, we told Logan about it and told him to star thinking about something he'd want to do or someplace he'd want to go. First thing he said to us was "Can we go to Mickey's house". Mickey Mouse Clubhouse was the first TV show we let him watch and he's been carrying around a talking Mickey doll since he became mobile. Mickey is in just about all the pictures we have of his stay in the hospital.
My knowledge of Make a Wish was minimal. I didn't know if there were 'tiers' of wishes based on how severe a child's condition was. We just told him if that's what he wanted to do then he just had to tell Karen and Megan (his Wish Granters) when they came to visit him. During this time, he was on and off steroids regularly and we knew when his good and bad weeks were going to be so we coordinated with Karen & Megan so that they came to meet Logan during a good week to save them having to see him at his 'worst'. When they arrived at our house, Logan opened the door and his first words to them were "Can I go to Mickey's house?". And that was that. The wheels were set in motion for a trip to Disney World. Karen and Megan told us there'd be about a year wait. Logan's sense of time passage isn't there yet so he didn't really knew what that meant but he was still super excited and it made the next couple rounds of treatments a little better.
Jumping ahead to mid March of 2019. A couple of days after Logan's 4th birthday my wife got a text from Megan asking for both of us to call her when we had a chance. That night we called and Meg told us they had a couple of cancelations. We could go to WDW either the first or second week of May! Both of us had a "holy moly" moment and said we'd get back to her after talking to Logan's doctor and making sure both of our bosses would approve the time off. Nobody had any qualms so we were booked to leave for Orlando on May 16th.
We had taken Logan to WDW once before in November of 2016 when he was ~20 months old. This trip was going to be very different. Not just because he was older and we now have 2 kids. We learned we'd be staying at Give Kids The World Village and we'd have a rental car. Neither my wife nor I had ever been to the World while not staying in a WDW resort nor had either of us ever had a rental car while there.
What came next was the most fruitful trips either of us had been on. There were stressful moments, sure, but when Logan saw Mickey for the first time on this trip, I was a blubbering mess.
Stay tuned for more...
@wdwmagic & @The Mom I hope you don't mind me pointing people to Give Kids The World's website to learn more about what they do and to learn how they can help out their cause if interested. If inappropriate to do so, let me know and I'll remove.
2019 Logan's Wish - 7
We ended up with a white Dodge Caravan. Never driven one and have sworn to never own one (I'm a car guy. I like driving my wife's RAV4 but will always and forever own a car). No special bells or whistles, just your base model Caravan. Easy enough to strap the kid's carseats into the captain's chairs in the second row. We stowed the 3rd row to free up ample space for all our bags and both strollers and we were off for Kissimmee. 
2019 Logan's Wish - 16
2019 Logan's Wish - 18
So happy Logan is doing better and much love, prayers and Pixie Dust to your family!!