Now for the stars of this blog post... Dream Factory of San Antonio and the Pratt Family. I was ecstatic when Amy Pratt contacted me and asked me to document this big day for her. Of course, I had no idea what Dream Factory even was though. So I did my research and found out they are very similar to Make A Wish. Below is a description of the organization from their website...
"The Dream Factory, Inc., which is headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, was founded in 1980 to grantdreams for children who are between the ages of 3 and 18 years. The organization utilizes a network of local volunteers to grant dreams for children who reside in their respective communities.
The San Antonio chapter of The Dream Factory, Inc. is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit charitable organization with federal tax-exempt status. It is an organization that relies exclusively on donations of funding, goods and services from businesses, groups, corporations and individuals to make dreams come true for children in the San Antonio metropolitan area."
You may find more information at http://www.sadreamfactory.org/
Every year Dream Factory teams up with other organizations, plus American Airlines and Disney World and multiple children across the United States are chosen to get to go to Disney World. All of these children are chronically ill in some way. This year Spencer Pratt of the Pratt family was chosen from San Antonio to receive this amazing vacation with his family.
The details and planning to make these vacations amazing for these kids is AMAZING in itself. See below their arrival to the airport in their very own limo!
Even Kens 5 was there to do a report on the event!
All the kids involved in this event get party's at every airport they have to stop at with gifts. And get this... when they get to Disney World they each get a bag of gifts every single day they are there!!!
Below is Amy Pratt (the children's mother) saying goody bye to her parents. This is the first real vacation for this family.
And they are off for their adventure!
I would like to share a little information with on the details of Spencer's condition. This information is taken straight from the Prayers and Praise for the Pratt Pack facebook fan page.
"Spencer was our first child, and from the time he was born, there were major complications. Having never heard of a TEF (Tracheal Esophageal Fistula), we were completely unprepared for his being diagnosed with one at 7 days old. A fistula (from the Latin meaning "a pipe") is an abnormal connection running between two tubes or between a tube and a surface. In Spencer's case, the connection (referred to as a "Type H" TEF) ran between his esophagus (food pipe) and his trachea (windpipe), and allowed air to pass into the esophagus, stomach and intestines. This can be deadly, as too much air in the stomach displaces stomach acid up the esophagus, through the misconnection, and into the lungs. Equally dangerous was the fact that food could pass directly into Spencer's lungs every time he swallowed, leading to aspiration and chronic bacterial lung infections. He had his first surgery to repair the defect within a short span of time after birth, and spent the next 4.5 months in the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) before we could bring him home. Ultimately, this surgery would later prove unsuccessful, resulting in an emergency trip to Children's Hospital Boston in the summer of 2010 to get the defect properly repaired. The Boston team was able to properly close not only the original TEF, but a second misconnection point between the esophagus and trachea that the original surgeon had either missed, or which had subsequently developed at a later point.
TEF children almost always have a concurrent condition called Tracheomalacia – or "floppy airway", and Spencer is no exception. The human windpipe is held open by a series of cartilage rings ... but Spencer is missing portions of some of those rings at the points in his trachea where his esophagus was misconnected. This means that the tracheal tissue in that part of his windpipe is unsupported, and flaps or collapses inward if his respiration goes too high. Because of his He has been repeatedly evaluated for a possible tracheotomy, and at this time, it remains uncertain whether or not he will ultimately need one.
Spencer also struggles with GERD (Gastro Esophageal Reflux Disease) – a condition in which the stomach contents leak backwards from the stomach into the esophagus. This constant influx of stomach acid can severely damage esophageal tissue over time, causing severe heartburn and increased risk of esophageal cancer. Because Spencer's condition is caused by a weakness in the sphincter muscle at the bottom of his esophagus, he was given a surgical fundoplication. In a fundoplication the gastric fundus (upper part) of the stomach is wrapped, or plicated, around the lower end of the esophagus and stitched in place, reinforcing the closing function of the lower esophageal sphincter. The esophageal hiatus (the hole in the diaphragm through which the esophagus passes) is also narrowed down by sutures to prevent or treat concurrent hiatal hernia, in which the top part of the stomach slides up through the enlarged esophageal hiatus of the diaphragm.
As of today Spencer has had 11 major surgeries and countless procedures, as well as being in physical therapy (PT) for global developmental delays, speech therapy for language delays, occupational therapy (OT) for handwriting and fine motor weakness and eating therapy for his Dysphagia (trouble swallowing). Still, he suffers with Chronic Acute Asthma, Scoliosis, Cerebral Palsy (CP), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD), Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), Strabismus (a condition in which the eyes are not properly aligned with each other), Central and Obstructive Apnea (requiring a BIPAP machine at night), and Velopharyngeal Insufficiency (VPI) as well as a new diagnosis of Mitochondrial Myopathy. Spencer is part of the VACTERL association; meeting the criteria for the Vertebral (Scoliosis), Tracheal and Esophageal (TEF) parts of the spectrum. Spencer's newest diagnoses is Dysautonimia."
I realize this is very detailed and a lot to take in but this was the easiest way for me to fill y'all in on his condition. Yes, Spencer was the child specifically chosen for this dream but I encourage y'all to go like this family's fan page and follow them. Spencer is not the only child in this family with health issues. In fact 4 out of 5 children are very sick. To find out the details of the other children's health issues please go to the about section of https://www.facebook.com/PrattPack5#!/PrattPack5.
Would you like to help out the Dream Factory with making more of children's wishes come true? If so below is a great way to do so! Come join me on this night and help raise money to see a child's face light up!!!
I know this was a long post but thanks for sticking around to read it.
Much Love,
~Charity~
