Good NewsSick Georgia teen gets prom dress of her dreams
She said yes to the prom dress.
Abby Gladin, 17, has missed a lot of school in the last ten years.
She’s been in and out of hospitals, undergoing numerous surgeries, as she lives with painful Crohn’s disease.
Still, the Atlanta, Georgia, teen dreams of living a “normal” life, going to school with her friends, and attending prom with her boyfriend.
When Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta learned how important prom was to Abby, hospital officials arranged a special prom dress shopping trip for her.
A chauffeured car picked up the teen at her doctor’s appointment and drove her and her mother, aunt and cousins to a local dress boutique where she could select any dress she wanted — for free.
"I feel so special!" she told 11alive.com.
As Abby searched for the perfect dress — she wanted a red-carpet-worthy dress that would accommodate her colostomy bag — Miss Georgia and Miss Colorado made a surprise visit the shop, lending the teen a crown for a photo.
"This is so cool, I feel like this shouldn’t be happening to me,” Abby said.
Abby faces another major surgery at the end of the school year. First, however, she has prom. And thanks to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and the staff at Miz Scarlett’s dress boutique, it will be a night to remember.
In June 2013, staff at Children’s Hospital Eastern Ontario threw a surprise prom for 17-year-old Nathalie Mercer, an Ottawa teen hospitalized with a dangerous cyst on her brain.
"I was just speechless the whole time," Mercer told the Ottawa Citizen. “I couldn’t believe how nice and willing they were to do this for me because I was missing my prom.”
She was discharged from the hospital in time to graduate with the rest of her class.
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