Ingersoll Family Granted Wish

Monday, 25 March 2019 07:46

Left to right: Her sister Kaidence (dressed as Uma), Justice and her brother Gryphon (dressed as Carlos) Photo credit: Krista Sweeney

Make-A-Wish Southwestern Ontario is making one girl's wishes come true.

INGERSOLL - One girl's dream trip will become a reality.

Ingersoll's Justice Sweeney and her family are heading to Disney through Make-A-Wish Southwestern Ontario.

Justice's mother Krista says she believes the trip will boost her daughter's spirits.

"I think it will help her confidence. She's had a low blow the last couple of years with not being able to do the stuff that she used to be able to do, so the decline in health. I think this will give her a boost in confidence, a boost in that she's got this. It's going to be a lifetime fight, but it'll give her that ability to want to do the fight and forget about being different. She's a high school student, so those kind of things, it wears on her being in a wheelchair all day at school and having to be fed differently than other kids, so it will give her that chance to be a kid again and not have the worries of everything else going on in her life."

Justice has myotonic muscular dystrophy. She was born with the disease, but her family wasn't aware she had it until she was diagnosed at nine years old.

Krista says her daughter has been in and out of the hospital for the last seven years, undergoing different tests. Justice is 16 years old and she is mostly wheelchair bound and fed through a g-tube, feeding her formula directly into her stomach.

Justice and her family are staying at Give Kids The World Village for a week, courtesy of Make-A-Wish Southwestern Ontario. Give Kids The World Village is a non-profit resort that provides cost-free vacations to children living with chronic or critical illnesses and their families.

"We'll be going to Give Kids The World Village which is an amazing little village of kids similar to Justice, different disabilities, different chronic illnesses. And this village actually caters so much to the kids. The biggest draw they have for the kids is ice cream for breakfast, an ice cream shop opens up at 7:30 in the morning, but it's very much oriented towards the kids. There's lots of stuff to do in the village, let alone Disney, Universal and SeaWorld, but there's a lot in the village itself."

Justice learned about the trip during a reveal party from her family at the Westminster United Church in Thamesford on Saturday. Her brother and sister dressed up as characters from Disney's "The Descendants" and held a big sign, revealing where she was going. They also gave Justice a dress of her favourite character, Mal, from the film.

Justice and her family will leave to Florida on April 18th.