Sweetpea & The race through the night |
It was a sweltering Florida night in early August (2000) when Gloria and I followed the ambulance onto Interstate 4 outside of Daytona Beach, Florida. The ambulance from Arnold Palmer Children's Hospital in Orlando was carrying a full five person trauma team and a very sick little girl. What was supposed to be a routine transfer
Cheyenne Lenay Dancause spent four days in the intensive care pediatric unit at Arnold Palmer Hospital For Children, and was diagnosed as having Type-1 brittle (uncontrollable) diabetes. Although she is home now, she remains under the care of the doctors at Arnold Palmer who monitor her progress daily even though she lives 60 miles away. That care will continue for another 16 years without cost to her family because of the generous donation from a golf legend named Arnold Palmer who funded the hospital in the beginning and the generous donations of so many people like you over the years.
Sweetpea faces many years of insulin shots and blood tests. When it's time to test her blood-sugar (five to six times a day), she will get her kit and tell you which finger to prick for the blood test. She's a little trooper, but then she has to be. Please do not send money to us to send to them. We are spending as much time as we can with Cheyenne and will be volunteering many hours in the future at Arnold Palmer and hopefully with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. We do not want to be responsible for your donation, so please send it directly to them. We have placed graphical links on this page to take you to their web sites if you need more information and have listed their addresses below. Please make any donations in the name of Cheyenne Lenay Dancause. And remember, your donation is tax deductible. Thank You, Dusty Miller & Gloria Johnson Arnold Palmer Hospital For Children |
from one hospital to another turned into a mad dash through the night when the 2 year old child went comatose just outside of Daytona Beach. At speeds of 85 to 90 miles per hour we followed the ambulance through the night dodging semi trailer trucks and errant drivers who would not get out of the way even for an ambulance with emergency lights and siren. It wasn't until we got to the hospital in Orlando that we found out why the ambulance had barreled through the night... We almost lost our grand-daughter. 
You, the line-dancers of the world, may have done a dance called Sweetpea for Shania Twain's "Honey I'm Home". That dance was written by Gloria Johnson and was named after our grand-daughter. "Sweetpea" is my knick-name for that little munchkin. She was only about four months old in the picture on the left.
We would appreciate it if you could find it in your hearts to help not only Arnold Palmer Hospital For Children but also the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Now that they have unraveled the human DNA strand, doctors and researchers feel confident that they will find a cure for diabetes. Doctors at Arnold Palmer say they are optimistic in estimating another 5 to 7 years of research. Even then there is much more to be done to administer that cure when it is finally found to the millions of people in the United States and around the world who suffer from the disease. About 20% of those people are small children and teenagers.Updated: Thursday, April 13, 2006 12:40:08 PM (Eastern Daylight Savings Time/USA)