Disney Dreams Come True for Southlanders

Written by MarComm Intern on December 11, 2015. Posted in In The Media

Married three months ago and both big Disney fans, John and Mary Calabrese learned Tuesday they’ve won a free trip to Disney World and will leave next week to celebrate a delayed honeymoon.

It wasn’t some contest or sweepstakes that made the all-expenses-paid, weeklong trip a reality, but an incurable cancer John suffers from that, doctors say, will in all likelihood in a few months claim the life of the 55-year-old school teacher, collector of antique newspapers, golfer and Abe Lincoln buff.

Diagnosed in August 2014 with multiple myeloma, a rare blood cancer, the resident of Chicago’s Mount Greenwood community has been receiving chemotherapy at Pronger Smith Medical Care for more than a year. That’s where he was surprised with the news about the trip, made possible by Dream Foundation, a dream-granting organization for adults and their families facing terminal illness.

ct-ctlfl-ct-sta-dying-man-honeymoon-st-1109-009-j-20151208 Calabrese for several years taught social studies at James Hart School in Homewood, and returned to work as a reading specialist at the school a little more than a week ago, saying that being around the students again has been “almost medicinal.” He was unable to work for more than a year after initially undergoing radiation treatment and chemotherapy to try to keep the cancer under control.

“The first thing I do (after returning to work) is ask for a week off,” to go on his honeymoon, he joked.

Also finding out Tuesday that she and her family would be going to Disney was 7-year-old Aryn, born with a genetic disorder. Representatives from Make- a-Wish Foundation Illinois came to her school, Blue Cap, in Blue Island, to make the presentation.

The six-day adventure will include stops at Universal Studios and Sea World for the entire Country Club Hills family. Aryn will be joined by her father and mother, Ron and Alicia Robinson, her brother, sister and a nurse.

Her family said the girl has seen the Disney movie “Frozen” hundreds of times, and each time her face lights up with a huge smile.

“She may be non-verbal but you know when she is happy by that smile,” her father said. “What makes this whole situation amazing to me is the doctors

themselves said she wouldn’t live past a year and now she is 7 years old. She really is a miracle.”

For John and Mary Calabrese, this will be their second visit to Disney. In June 2014, before he was diagnosed, he had surprised her with a trip for her 50th birthday, but pain in his hip meant difficulty walking the park.

“He always said ‘I owe you a trip to Disney,'” his wife said.

The hip pain and a subsequent toothache were the first symptoms something was wrong. According to the Mayo Clinic, multiple myeloma causes cancer cells to accumulate in the bone marrow, where they crowd out healthy blood cells. John said the pain in his bones and joints was so severe he’d take 40- minute hot showers.

“It’s so surreal,” he said of his ordeal. “One day you’re the healthiest person, hitting golf balls until your hands hurt, then the next day your whole world is rocked.”

He had a stem cell transplant in February, hoping that might give him an extended cancer-free period, but the cancer resurfaced in July.

“It came back worse. It came back way worse,” Calabrese said.

He and his wife were married at their home Sept. 18, and “two days later he was in the hospital with sepsis and pneumonia,” she said.

“I thought I was going to lose him then,” Mary said.

John said the cancer is “as hard mentally as it is physically” to deal with, and credits his wife for forcing him to do the daily tasks such as getting dressed or taking out the trash so “I avoid the oh-woe-is-me trap.”

“She brought me through the dark days,” he said. “I would not be here if it wasn’t for Mary. Even with this, we are very happy together.”

For the Robinson family, this will be their first trip to Disney.

“I am just so happy and excited for the experience my family is going to have. I’m excited and blessed for her to have this opportunity. For all of us, really,” Alicia Robinson said.

In August, Ron Robinson saw an advertisement for Make-a-Wish Foundation and thought of his daughter. To qualify, a child must have a life- threatening medical condition and be under the age of 18.

Tom Wills and Michelle Ford, oncology specialists with Takeda Pharmaceutical, presented the Calabreses with their honeymoon package. The company makes the medicines that are used in John’s chemotherapy, and Wills said that new drugs that have come to market in the last several years have increased the life expectancy for people with the type of cancer John has.

He continues to receive chemotherapy twice a week, part of a mix of drugs he’s learned to live with.

“I look at it as a chemistry set and I’m the chemistry set,” he said. “You do what you have to do to stay alive, and I personally like staying alive.”

John, wearing a pair of Abe Lincoln socks while receiving his chemo on Tuesday, said visiting the Lincoln museum in Springfield is among the things the couple has planned once they’re back from Disney.

“We’ve got a lot still to do,” he said.

Disney Dreams Come True for Southlanders

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