Wow, I guess I really left you all hanging on that last post...well, the post before the last one...the one written back in October...where we were waiting to hear from the doctor about all of our Celiac blood testing we had done. Sorry about that. The last few months of the year were beyond insane as we dealt with body strep, Celiac Disease, Influenza, issues at school, change of schools, trips to the ER. The list goes on and on, but I have good news I would much rather tell you about now, so an update on all that end of the year stuff will just have to wait.
But, just to fill you in real quickly first, none of the rest of us tested positive for Celiac Disease. We did have a couple of kiddos with some questionable results, but not questionable enough to have them get the scope done. The thing with Celiac Disease and the blood test for it is that although we got negative results now, it can actually show up later. The reason for that is because Celiac Disease is a genetic disease and although a person may have the genetic make up for Celiac Disease, it lays dormant until something triggers it and then they begin to have symptoms. So because of that, a person who gets a negative result may still someday develop Celiac Disease and since one sibling has it, we will need to watch the others for symptoms and redo the testing if that happens. The doctors actually recommend getting retested every year.
Considering what Spencer has been through over the past few years, we figure his Celiac Disease was triggered at about the age of 4 or early 5. That is when we began seeing many of the issues that we now believe were caused by CD. By removing the gluten and other things we have removed, we are already seeing huge changes in Spencer. October thru December were brutal to our poor boy. Between body strep, CD, and Anxiety he was in more pain then I have ever seen him in or ever want to see him in again. He missed over a month of school. Luckily we are now beginning to see huge improvements. Our happy-go-lucky kid is coming back to us and seems to feel a little better every day! It is very nice to see.
Okay, now on to the fun news! Thanks to the Make-A-Wish organization, Annalise will soon be swimming with Dolphins at
Discovery Cove in Orlando Florida. Back in September her wish granters came to find out what her wish would be. She has been talking about swimming with dolphins for over a year and this is what her final wish was...specifically to swim with a pink dolphin. She was adamant about the color! Her close second wish was to go to HER castle (at Disney World) and see Cinderella. We had considered a Disney Cruise, but were told that the island that you go to on the cruise is not easily accessible to wheelchairs and that the whole trip would be a very tough one for Bryce and Annalise.
So, the wish granters said they would work their magic and get Annalise swimming with dolphins. They weren't so sure about the pink dolphin thing, but when Annalise began to tear up as they told her that, they said they would do the best they could to find some pink ones. A couple of weeks later I got a call from Mindy (one of the wish granters) and she asked me a few more questions about Annalise. Then a few days after that I got another call from her where she explained to me that they were having trouble finding a place that would work for Annalise because most of the places that Make-A-Wish Arizona has connections with, the child has to be able to at least stand unassisted for a short period of time so that they can get on the dock to get to the dolphins. So, the usual places would not work for Annalise. Annalise's Make-A-Wish team didn't give up. They looked into places like
Island Dolphin Care where Dolphin Therapy is used for children with special needs. Annalise would be able to swim with the dolphins here, but MAW researched it a bit and discovered that there really isn't anything else to do around the area and although the wish is for Annalise, they want it to be enjoyable for all of us. They were afraid this place would not have enough to offer as a MAW trip, so they continued to search.
We waited through October, November, and December and then on January 12th I received a call from Jeff and Mindy. They said that Annalise's wish coordinator had come up with two different options that they thought would work for our family and we could choose which one we thought would be best. The first one was in Hawaii at a place called
Dolphin Quest. We would stay at that hotel, she would get to swim with the dolphins one day, and they would have some sort of Luau to honor her as a wish child. The other option was to go to Discovery Cove in Orlando Florida. We would stay at
Give Kids the World Village and spend one day at Discovery Cove. We would also receive tickets to Disney World where Annalise would get to go to "her" castle as well as the other Disney parks. I was pretty sure which she was going to choose, but I asked her anyway.
I first told her about Hawaii, making it sound really cool because after all if this was my wish, I would definitely choose Hawaii. When I told her about the dolphins at the hotel she said, "maybe they have a pink one!" Maybe they do. Then I told her about Florida and swimming with the dolphins there. Then I mentioned the castle at Disney World and it was all over from there. She immediately said, "I want to go to Disney World." Nothing I could say would make her waiver even one little bit. Actually, I am very glad she chose Florida because I know that there will be so much more there for her and that her wishes and dreams really will come true.
We were considering an early December time frame for various reasons, but her MAW coordinator had different plans. She said that she doesn't want Annalise to have to wait that long, especially since she has had to wait so long all ready. She also said that it would be tougher to do some of the fun things they are planning if we went in December. I'm not sure what all they have planned, but knowing the people at Make-A-Wish, I'm sure it will be unforgettable! So, the big day is April 22nd! We are all very excited and Annalise can't stop talking about going to her castle and swimming with the pink dolphins in Florida!
