Child's dream to meet Mickey comes true

The Daily Inter Lake

Cheyanne Coxen dreamed of flying to the Magic Kingdom of Disneyland and meeting Mickey Mouse.

Cheyanne's dream came true last weekend. As she left the plane Monday in Kalispell with parents Doug and Angie Coxen and sister Candace, the diminutive 12-year-old girl radiated happiness.

"I got to meet Mickey at his house," Cheyanne said with a smile.

She was kissed by Donald Duck, hosted by Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella, and dined with Goofy. The family cruised through a jungle, dodged pirates in the Caribbean and made memories the family will always cherish.

Through the efforts of Make-A-Wish Foundation, with a last-minute assist from California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Polson family received a miracle for Cheyanne after a year beset by tragedy.

"She had her first stroke a year ago," said Angie Coxen, Cheyanne's mom. "She has a very rare syndrome called MELAS."

Coxen said her daughter was born with cerebral palsy. However, Cheyanne was coping with that disability. She had learned to walk and was attending school.

Cheyanne was in the fifth-grade last November when she developed flu-like symptoms.

"She had a terrible headache," Coxen said. "Then she started acting like she couldn't see us."

Coxen and her husband Doug rushed the child to the emergency room where an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) revealed that their daughter had suffered a stroke. Dr. Anne Manktelow, a pediatric surgeon at Community Medical Center in Missoula, recognized the symptoms as MELAS.

After blood tests and a muscle biopsy were sent to the Mayo Clinic, the family received the devastating diagnosis.

"It's a progressive syndrome-there's nothing they can do to cure it or stop it," Coxen said.

MELAS - or mitochondrial encephalopathy, lactic acidosis and stroke-like episodes - is caused by mutations in mitochondria genetic material passed down from mother to child.

Coxen had no idea that she carried the mutation. Her other daughter, Candace, 13, also has the marker but the physicians say she, like her mother, won't develop the syndrome.

Cheyanne's physicians at Community Medical Center can't predict when she may succumb to the syndrome, but they've told the family she probably has from six months to two years to live, Coxen said.

Cheyanne suffered another in stroke in May. She was struck again on the Fourth of July, then again in September, and twice in October.

"Toward the end, her strokes get closer together," Coxen said.

With her little girl on a feeding tube and down to 38 pounds, Coxen sought some way to reward her daughter's amazing good attitude through her sickness.

"She's a sweetheart," Angie Coxen said. "Everyone who meets her falls in love with her."

With Cheyanne's hospitalizations increasing, Coxen looked for help from Community Medical Center to contact Make-A-Wish Foundation. That's when Make-A-Wish volunteers Adrienne Dussault of Missoula and Leta Chustz of Columbia Falls came into their lives.

Dussault was scheduled to meet the family in October when Cheyanne ended up in the hospital again.

"She came there and brought her lots of gifts," Coxen recalled. "It [the trip] was a go ahead on Oct. 30. The doctor said if there was a time to go, it's now."

After a year of visiting only the hospital, the frail child rallied with the news that her wish had been granted. She even gained some weight as she dreamed of visiting the Magic Kingdom with her family and favorite nurse, Maria Gurreri.

But the trip was almost canceled when the California board of nursing refused to recognize Gurreri's credentials. For a while, the family faced traveling to Florida which has a reciprocity agreement with Montana on licenses.

"That would have been too long [a flight] for Cheyanne," her mother said.

But then someone got word to Schwarzenegger. No one knows who made that connection, but it saved Cheyanne's dream trip.

"He called the board of nursing and told them to get their act together and recognize Maria's license," Coxen recalled. "Within 10 minutes, Make-A-Wish called and said it was taken care of."

With the last hurdle cleared, the family prayed that Cheyanne's health would hold up so her wish for a family vacation would come true. Make-A-Wish made every arrangement and paid all expenses.

Thanks to the magic of Mickey Mouse, Tinkerbell and friends, one very happy girl was handed her the keys to the kingdom Nov. 18.

"They treated us like royalty," Coxen said.

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by e-mail at cchase@dailyinterlake.com.