On December 31st, 2020 after experiencing a fever that she just couldn’t kick, Anja was admitted to Children’s and a parent’s worst fear was realized – liver cancer! Throughout her treatments, Anja experienced some bumps in the road with complications that required more surgeries than originally expected. It also meant many, many long days of hospitalization. During those in-patient times, her parents noticed how engaged she was when she had music therapy. They saw her physically and emotionally relax when she heard the music. When talking with Mom & Dad about a wish for Anja, they put continuation of at-home music therapy at the top of the list. We set to work to find a therapist who would engage this little sweetheart and Jessica, the Director of Ensemble Music, helped us customize a program for Anja that marries behavioral health with music therapy! An additional bonus is that she knows the therapist at Children’s that Anja has been working with and consulted her to learn how to best support Anja.
We also learned that Anja loves getting mail so we put together a wish list of items so that we can send her something special every month for the next year. Each item was selected with her love of sounds, rhythm, dancing and play in mind and we can’t wait to see how much she grows in the coming year through her love of music! Friends and customers of Crabtree’s Garden Gate in Marine on St. Croix adopted and underwrote Anja’s wish by rounding up their purchases and donating funds at the registers during the months of July & August. We can’t say thank you enough to Jan and her wonderful staff for sharing Anja’s story and for all of her great customers for helping us fulfill Anja’s wish to the max!
