I finally found a hospital -- a good 40 miles away from the "Give Kids the World" Village -- that would accept our Illinois Public Aid. It has a well-regarded pediatric bone marrow transplant center, headed by a talented doctor with particular interest and experience in genetic bone marrow failure disorders. Unfortunately, the doctor wanted to see and examine Peter before giving him platelets. So the proposal was that we spend most of Wednesday driving to and from the hospital for the doctor visit, and most of Thursday getting the platelets. Um, no.
At this point I went back to my park-touring plans and reviewed every single thrill ride. There were more than I remembered in the "virtual reality" category -- your chair throws you around a little while 3-d video makes you feel like you're hurtling through space. I visited a few sites to figure out exactly what kind of movement would be the most dangerous for Peter and learned that any kind of g-forces (rapid acceleration and deceleration) were by far the worst. Then I Googled "Orlando rides g-forces" and sure enough, up came a list of the major thrill rides at each park with an estimate of the g-forces exerted on riders. That made it easy to figure out which rides had to be "off the table".
In the course of hopping around the web I also discovered that there is a YouTube video (or three or four or 50) of EVERY SINGLE RIDE at EVERY SINGLE PARK in Orlando. For rides that were on my "maybe" list, I watched the videos from start to finish to get a sense of the motion. I also found a couple of ride review sites which rated the "scariness" of the rides. Half of the "maybes" turned out to be just fine (or at least no more risk than riding a bike or having a football thrown at you, as Peter did this afternoon). A couple of others had to be moved to the "no fly" list. The remaining "maybes" are a little more vigorous than some might choose for a kid with low platelets, but they do not have substantial g-forces.
Then I went to Peter -- with a little support from Leo and Annie -- and told him that I had good news. "Guess what!! You're not going to have to go into the hospital on Sunday for platelets, and you won't have to go when we're at Disney, either!" (Peter: "YESSSS!!!") "The doctor says you don't have to have anything at all as long as you stay off the really big scary rides. (Peter: "Awww!! It's not fair!") "Well, OK, if that's really important to you, we can go ahead and put you in the hospital twice. It's your choice!" (Annie and Leo: "Hey, WE'RE not going on those rides ... you'd have to go all by yourself anyway.") (Peter: "hmmmm ... [pause] ..... YAAAYYY!!!! No platelets!!!")
It's a beautiful thing.
Tomorrow at this time we will be all moved into our two-story villa at "Give Kids the World", with our rental van in the driveway. We may be sitting by the pool with our legs in the water, watching the evening extravaganza. Or we might be getting ice cream at the "whenever you want it" ice cream parlor. Then again, Peter may be hanging out by the monster train layout with all sorts of buttons to push to control the trains, or sitting at the end of the dock fooling around with radio control boats. He might be fishing at the pond where someone will bait his hook for him and make sure he actually catches something. But probably not. My guess is he'll be in the computer/ videogame/ arcade area, playing Wii for all he's worth. And Leo and Annie? They will probably have filled the fridge with cold beer, so we can sit on our front porch in our rocking chairs with a cold beverage.
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| Florence of Arabia and her trusty steed |
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| This is NOT the hat and poncho I will be wearing in Florida! |
The limo comes at 6 tomorrow. They send a "stretch", because it thrills the wish kid, who gets to sit up front with the driver. Everything is paid for. We have a debit card from Make-a-Wish with enough cash on it for all of our meals, souvenirs and incidentals. The bags are packed. The kids are psyched. Yeah, I guess I am too. I never imagined in a million years that we would be a Make-a-Wish family. It was something that happened to other kids in other families. I'd give it up in a heartbeat if it would bring back the 95% of Peter's bone marrow that's gone. But, since that isn't an option, we are going to have a BLAST.
It's supposed to be stormy most of the week in Florida, but I went out to Wal-Mart and got (for $5 each) some colorful ponchos to keep us dry in the rain -- AND when Shamu uses his tail to soak the audience at Seaworld. The same ponchos go for $20 in Orlando. I have an enormous quantity of sunscreen and my "Florence of Arabia" hat, which protected me so well in the Peruvian Andes this July. The kids claim that they will all be wearing paper bags over their heads saying "we don't know that dorky lady". Don't care don't care don't care. I'VE got the debit card!
More from Florida ...
Chris
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