At our event on 10/30, I shared the story of Isla, an adorable and brave little girl who was diagnosed with cancer in October of 2021, at 18 months old, in the middle of the COVID pandemic. After a tumor resection and 9 months of inpatient chemo at Duke, she is now in remission from Medulloblastoma. Her wish was to "see a princess," and through Make-A-Wish Eastern NC, she, her parents, and big sister, Fisher, went to Disney World and Universal Studios for a week...and of course, she got to see plenty of princesses! Lindsey, Isla's mom, shared with me that this trip was really the family's first true vacation due to COVID, the cancer diagnosis, and a recent death in the family right before Isla's tumor was discovered. To get to have a week of happy memories, joyful laughter and no medical procedures, bills or worries was a gift they still find hard to articulate.
Their story is much like my own family's story. We took our son Oliver on his own Make A Wish trip to Disney when he was 5 (he is now almost 16!). It was our first family vacation and something we would have never done after years in and out of hospitals, after his brain surgery in Boston, piles of medical bills, and tons of stress. It was life-changing for us and gave us so much hope, as it does for all wish families.
