This post is quite belated. November was a challenging month which deserves its own post. But I would be quite remiss to skip over a post about Patrick’s exciting October 31.
This year was a huge milestone. Patrick’s 7th birthday. And the one year anniversary of his transplant.
Last year, we spent Patrick’s birthday anticipating transplant. I had only just wrapped his presents and gone to bed when the phone rang telling us a donor had been found. Around midnight, we were our local children’s hospital being admitted and transferred for insurance purposes and bidding goodbye to Patrick’s faithful GI doctor. A little after 1, we boarded a life flight plane. We were awake (and tearful) all night, arriving at Nebraska Medicine around 6 a.m.
We caught a little bit of sleep and then tried to cram in as much birthday and Halloween celebration as possible. Around 1 p.m. they took Patrick down to have a central line placed and he was kept asleep for the rest of the day.
His long-awaited and sorely needed multi-organ transplant was an amazing birthday gift. The kind of gift from a stranger that still takes my breath away.
However, from a celebration standpoint, that wasn’t much of a birthday. And so, this year we decided that we had a LOT to celebrate.
So, several months ago, we asked Patrick’s transplant team if it was safe for him to celebrate in Disneyland. And they answered with a very emphatic “YES.” In fact, all but swore they’d do everything in their power to get him there. And so, we bought tickets and made plans.
Parent teacher conference fell just right to give a long Halloween weekend. We left for Anaheim Wednesday night and I couldn’t help see both parallel and contrast as we touched down in the dark and traveled to our room exhausted from a late night of travel.
Here’s some of the highlights from the rest of the trip.
Thursday
We stayed for 3 days. In my mind, a day for each occasion: Halloween, Transplant & Birthday. When we checked into guest services to request a disability card that would allow Patrick to wait for rides without standing in lines. When they asked why and I explained that he was celebrating his transplant anniversary and is immune suppressed, they handed us all I’m Celebrating badges. Patrick insisted we wear them right away.
Disney Cast Members are trained to watch for badges and offer congratulations. However, I’ll admit that few expected our answer of celebrating a year since transplant. It started to feel a bit strange to keep explaining, so we snuck the badges off when we went back to our room and didn’t pull them back out till we were celebrating birthday.
We decided to head straight for the ride that Patrick loved best last trip. Radiator Springs Racers. What we didn’t think about was that Patrick always has had a good chance to warm up on calmer rides before this fast ride with big ups and downs. He was terrified. But insisted we go again and, well, after the second go broke down crying during the ride. He’s a thrill seeker, but this year Patrick also finally had a sense of fear and we had to be a little bit more careful what he rode on.
We abandoned that plan. And switched to kiddie rides in Bug’s Land. Patrick was much happier there. In fact, he had an awesome time there!
After an afternoon break and nap in our room, we got dressed in our Halloween costumes and headed back to Mickey’s Halloween Party. Patrick had asked to dress as mechanics, so I’d put together some family costumes of Mater’s Pit Crew. We headed to Cars Land to take a couple of pictures and the costumes attracted extra attention from cast members who offered pictures and even some fast passes and we ended up there longer than planned.
Unfortunately, as we arrived at the gates to Disneyland Park, we realized that we had forgotten to pack Patrick’s evening meds. Howie bravely headed back alone to get them while Patrick and I headed in to find something to ride. With crowds as they were, we were just getting onto the first ride when Brian caught up with us.
We rode a couple other rides in the dark. Then decided to give trick or treating a go. We’d planned to skip it, but when we discovered that there were lower sugar nut free treats available in each cart, and when Patrick was having a great time with it, we hit a few more trick or treat lines. We caught the electric parade and then watched the halloween fireworks before heading back to our room.
Friday
Friday was incredibly busy in the park. That meant fighting crowds in a lot of places and we didn’t ride as much as usual. We did the obligatory multiple rides in Autopia, met a couple of super heroes, and then decided to let Patrick try a couple of grown up rides as he was seeming braver. The was the first time we’ve tried Matterhorn. Unlike other rides, the Matterhorn bobsleds don’t allow for sitting side by side. The meant Patrick couldn’t bury himself into daddy’s side. I guess he found it fun, but scary. The ride stopped and I turned to see if he was ok (remembering tears the day before). Patrick was lying down in the bottom of the sled.. laughing. I guess it was scary until he got where he couldn’t see.
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was open for the first time in the years we’ve taken Patrick. He was nervous on this one, but actually really enjoyed it. He asked to ride it again, but with crowds as they were, we ended up grabbing lunch and then heading back to our room to rest.
By the time we came back, it was night and the idea of a roller coaster in the dark was scary. Instead, we headed off to Dumbo and he was much happier.
That night, we decided to watch Fantasmic. We opted to request a seat in the handicapped section so that Patrick could stay in his stroller. That always end up a bit awkward. Patrick is so much younger than everyone else there. But he quickly made friends with a grandma who was sitting there alone while her family was seated somewhere else. Her birthday was on Halloween too, so they had an instant bond.
We tried to stay put after the show for fireworks. Alas, though, Patrick was doing an awesome job in underwear for this whole trip. (He had a couple of accidents on rides, but mostly was good about asking for and making it to the bathroom.) And halfway through fireworks realized he needed to find a restroom. Oh well.
Saturday
Thank goodness Halloween meant some limitations on entrance and crowds went back down in the park. It was so strange to be there knowing it was Halloween for everyone. Lots and lots of people in costumes. But we’d had our Halloween and were purely doing birthday.
We did some back to back rides of the kiddie roller coaster in Toon Town because there crowds hadn’t found the back of the park yet. At Minnie’s house, the cast member made a big deal of Patrick being there on his actual birthday.
In fact, Patrick absolutely delighted in wearing his birthday badge and having EVERYONE wish him a happy birthday everywhere he went.
After getting our morning fill of rides, we hopped onto the monorail and rode to Downtown Disney. There’s a fairly authentic Italian style pizzeria restaurant there called Napoli. Patrick DEVOURED the pizza there.
Then we went to get his present. A car from Ride Makerz. (This is the car lover’s version of Build a Bear. You design your car. It sounds like it’s starting out fairly inexpensively. But once you add remote control and a rechargeable battery and custom wheels and all.. well… We knew going in. Thank goodness Patrick’s fancy was fairly restrained. The experience was worth it. He loved getting to assemble the car with power tools. And he loves his truck.
We had reservations for dinner. Disney is always so good with dining. But we learned that we have entered a new realm for them. See, they are AMAZING at following allergy precautions. They won’t take a risk with any thing you declare to them. And they have lots of alternatives.
However, we knew going in that Patrick was going to was to order the mac and cheese. In fact, he’d been rather picky all trip and we were fairly sure that the mac and cheese was the only food he’d order on the menu.
So we asked the chef to come visit us at the table to make sure that the pasta and other ingredients they would be using were exactly what I expected and would be safe. Some pasta is made with eggs and unsafe. However, for Patrick pasta manufactured near eggs, as long as it isn’t concentrated eggs, is ok.
Well, before we knew it, we were being visited by the restaurant manager who explained to us that they would not be able to serve him any pasta. Or the cake that we’d special ordered for his birthday.
Only after I’d made a very in depth explanation of the parameters we’ve worked out with Patrick’s allergist would they allow us to order these foods for him.
So lesson learned. Disney is great at avoiding allergens. But don’t tell them your grey areas out loud. I think that’s going to be an ongoing rule as long as Patrick needs to eat food’s that he is mildly allergic to.
Anyway… once food was ordered the dinner was very nice. Patrick beamed at his little miniature cake and really, really loved the sorbet they brought him , too.
After dinner, we headed over the World of Color show. Our dining package reserved us seating in a specific area. And then, on top of that, Patrick had his handicapped pass. However, that really only led to a lot of confusion. It took a lot of walking to find the area we’d be seated in. And once we got there, we weren’t so sure it was where we wanted to be.
The reserved handicapped section was full. Beyond full. Like they had to make people get up and move to make room for us. And they just kept cramming people in.
Really, the problem came down to large family groups that didn’t understand that a family of 12 was too big to all squeeze in with one family member there. Alas, that meant that as we were rule abiding, our family ended up divided. They seated us on a bench so that we could fold up Patrick’s stroller and make room for others. And then they needed more space and Brian got up to allow it. Meanwhile the gigantic family grumbled about how unfair it was to ask them to be separated.
I think maybe next time we’ll have to look more closely at whether or not we can do regular seating. Thankfully, Brian stayed close enough that we could still see each other and the other people he ended up standing with (who were also displaced) were very kind. The show was really nice and Patrick really enjoyed it.
And we went to leave, but Patrick kept talking us into one more ride, and then another and then another and we ended up lingering and riding and then doing a little more shopping so that he ended up getting to stay up till midnight on his birthday.
Monday
We came home Sunday and had a quiet day at home. And then Monday evening we invited grandparents to come join us for birthday cake. Mixed in with needing to run back and forth to help with Patrick’s school to help take him to the bathroom that made for quite the complicated day. Never decorated a cake in half hour increments with errands in between. But it came together and Patrick loved the little quiet family party at home.
And by the end of the weekend, I was quite satisfied and quite done with reminiscing about how far we’ve come. It is truly miraculous to see what this year has brought. And also, it is time to get back to normal.
That’s what we hope Patrick’s 7th year will be. Just a nice normal year where he can keep growing and we can settle into the normal that we’ve always dreamed for him.
Patrick Hoopes 