I wish to have a Doc McStuffins Playhouse
Penny
5
cancer
From Cancer Patient to Kid Doctor
When Penny—who has a trio of older brothers—was diagnosed with a neuroblastoma at just 13 months of age, it wasn’t her mom’s first time caring for a child with a critical illness. Penny’s brother Steven had already been referred to Make-A-Wish a year earlier for a health condition that required hospitalization and surgery. In fact, the family was in the process of picking a date for Steven’s wish trip to Hawaii when they learned of Penny’s cancer.
“You don’t get a wish, it comes to your kids for something hard,” says wish mom Andrea. “I don’t think I would have ever expected we would have had two big ‘hards,’ in that way. Little kids, they’re looking for any light they can find in a dark situation and one of her brothers said, ‘Well, now Penny gets a wish too.’”
Penny was too young to qualify for a wish at that time, and first had to undergo what would end up being 23 months of active treatment at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital - Oakland. To help her process what was going on during the first of many hospital stays, Andrea bought her young daughter a Curious George doll wearing a white doctor’s coat and stethoscope.
Watch Penny's incredible medical and wish journey.
“That was the beginning of Penny wanting to be a doctor or a nurse,” says Andrea. “Everything that she did was emulating what her caretakers in the hospital were doing. She wanted to be a part of taking the medicine and doing the lab draws. Every time a doctor came in or they came in to do rounds, she wanted access to their stethoscope.”
Branching out from Curious George during her time at the hospital, she grew to love the Disney character, Doc McStuffins, a little girl doctor like herself.
“That kind of broadened her horizons,” says Andrea of Penny’s discovery of Doc McStuffins. “All of her play has been about that. We just laugh because we have all these pictures of her doing medical procedures on her brothers. She’s not afraid because she was able to live that all out through play. And that really, I think, carried her through treatment.”
Penny relied on her bravery while facing some setbacks, including losing her vision and some of her hearing. “She’s legally blind now because of complications of the treatment, so that has created some challenges for her,” says Andrea. “But she doesn’t let those challenges stop her.”
Though Penny loves Doc McStuffins, her wish wasn’t to meet the character. Instead, she wanted to be like Doc McStuffins and her heroes who took care of her and her family during her treatment. She wanted to be a doctor, like her oncologist, Dr. Clara Golden.
Make-A-Wish staff got to work transforming Penny into an official practitioner and building a Doc McStuffins inspired clinic in her backyard where she could perform her exams. Penny’s older brothers helped out by submitting designs for the space.
“These little boy sketches, you know,” says Andrea. “They have all kinds of stuff like a trap door and a bridge. It was really cool because they were experiencing it alongside of her. They wanted this so bad for their sister and they were so excited to be creative on her behalf.”
The COVID-19 pandemic caused some delays, but Penny took it in stride. “For almost an entire year she was telling people, ‘I’m going to be a doctor, I’m getting a clinic,’” Andrea recalls. “People look at her like, what are you talking about? It’s such a strange thing to say to people, but she knew, and she was just so pumped that that was going to be happening. So the buzz in our house was ‘This clinic is going to happen and I’m going to be a doctor.’”
While a cohort of volunteers and experts from Hannah Construction were working to bring a cartoon clinic to life, Make-A-Wish organized a pinning ceremony for Penny at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital of Oakland. Her wish volunteers gave Penny scrubs that she wore to the ceremony, and her brothers dressed up in their button-down shirts. She received a real hospital badge from hospital security with the same Oakland Children’s Hospital lanyard all the staff wore. Dr. Golden and nurses gave speeches to welcome her to the forces of health care. “She was very serious that day,” says Andrea, “and took it very seriously.” Finally, Penny rang the “end of treatment” bell to everyone’s delight and applause.
“She still has clinical appointments and scans and so she wears her badge to the hospital every single time we go,” says Andrea. “People acknowledge her as staff, so she thinks it’s so cool.”
She still has clinical appointments and scans and she wears her badge to the hospital every single time we go. People acknowledge her as staff, so she thinks it’s so cool.
Andrea
Penny's mom
Next up was a place to establish Dr. Penny’s residency. Penny’s family lives on a hill and near their neighborhood school, so their entire community was able to keep an eye on the construction.
“In the midst of a pandemic when maybe Make-A-Wish isn’t able to do the things they normally do or people wouldn’t see it as much, at least within our little neighborhood and our community, people are seeing this thing being built,” Andrea says. “From just posts to the framing and then the roof goes up and now it’s getting painted. So Make-A-Wish has impacted more people and they’re being encouraged by something like this happening. They call her Doctor Penny at the school.”
When the clinic was finished, Make-A-Wish held a ribbon cutting ceremony for Penny to open for business. The brightly colored playhouse contained an eye chart, medical exam table, and all the gear. “Stethoscopes, bandages, and everything,” says Andrea.
Penny’s brothers held the ribbon for her and showed her how to cut it. Her first patients were two of her primary care nurses who came to the ceremony. “These were her friends and her family,” says Andrea. “For months and months as a little girl, she didn’t have preschool or daycare or neighbor friends—she had her nurses. Then the tables were turned when they come to her house and now, they’re the patients and she’s the caretaker. That was so magical and it was super empowering for her to be able to show them she knows her stuff!”
Dr. Penny’s clinic is now a popular spot in her neighborhood. Her brothers play with her and their friends in it every day. “Kids are in the clinic sitting in these chairs, giving each other band aids, and just living in a lighthearted, safe, peaceful space together,” Andrea says.
Penny was already using play to harness her courage to get through a traumatic situation, but Andrea sees that the wish been even more empowering for her daughter.
“There’s now even more strength now that she really thinks this is who she is: She’s a doctor, she has a badge, she works at Children’s Hospital Oakland, she has a clinic in her backyard, and her oncologist said, ‘Let me know and I’ll come work on the weekends,’” says Andrea. “It’s the sweetest thing. And it is very powerful for our family, for sure.”