Our Happiest Hospital on Earth

Most people go to Disneyland for churros and fireworks. We go for that too, don’t get me wrong, but over the last few years the parks quietly turned into something else for us. Disneyland became our happy little hospital.

Hospitals are where you go to get fixed, monitored, stabilized. You trade in your clothes for a gown, your name for a wristband, your freedom for a whiteboard schedule. They’re necessary, but they’re not built for joy. When Traci’s cancer chapter really kicked into high gear, it felt like our entire life got rewritten in hospital font: meds, appointments, infusion chairs, vitals, pain scales. Our house even started to feel like an extension of that—IV poles in the corner, pill organizers on the table, the soundtrack of alarms and reminders instead of music.

Then there’s Disneyland.

On paper, that place should be impossible for us. It’s walking, lines, noise, logistics, an Olympic sport of endurance. But somehow, when we roll under that train station and see “Here you leave today…” on the sign, the rules shift. The wheelchair isn’t a symbol of everything cancer has taken; it’s just how we do Disney. The G‑tube isn’t a medical crisis; it’s a timing puzzle we work around parades and ride windows. Instead of nurses, we get cast members who treat us like we belong there as we are, not as a problem to solve.

One of my favorite quiet moments was taking a picture of the “Celebrate Happy” sign for Traci. She struggled to get her phone over the railing from her chair to get the angle she wanted, so I stretched, snapped it, and brought it back to her like I’d just retrieved some priceless artifact. That little sign turned into a mission statement for us. If we have to do hard, we’re at least going to look for pockets of happy inside it. We’re going to celebrate whatever good we can find, even if it’s small, even if it’s wedged between pain meds and fatigue.

On May 8th this year, I came home from a chaotic work week and asked Traci a question I didn’t actually expect her to say yes to: “You wanna try Disneyland today?” She surprised me. We packed meds and the feeding bag like we were prepping for a field operation and went. We didn’t “crush the parks.” We rode Soarin’ Over California, did the Pixar Pal‑A‑Round, wandered the Art gallery, window‑shopped on Main Street. I grabbed a chili cone queso and a ridiculous good pastrami burger. She smiled. Like really smiled. For a few hours, she wasn’t just a patient. She was my fun Disney wife again.

That day didn’t change her diagnosis. It didn’t fix her pain. But it did something hospital visits almost never do: it refilled both of our emotional tanks. It reminded us that our story isn’t only scan results and pill counts. It’s also Ferris wheel selfies, Soarin’ breeze, and her looking over at me and saying, “One day I want to put my toes in the ocean again,” after we flew over the beach on that screen.

That’s what I mean by happy little hospital. Disneyland doesn’t erase the medical reality—we still navigate the wheelchairs, G‑tube timing, fatigue, and pain. But inside those gates, all that effort is pointed at something joyful. The “treatment plan” is Dole Whip and background music and the two of us moving through a place that feels like ours. The outcome we’re chasing isn’t just “stable labs,” it’s moments where she feels like Traci, not just like a diagnosis in a chair.

At home, I’m starting to quietly copy that energy. Our craft room for example, the KEF speakers, the reclining loveseat—they started as practical stuff for Traci’s comfort, but they’ve quietly become our little clinic of joy (which admittedly we should use more). I set feeds and timers like medication orders, sure, but I also schedule in a deliberate “soak” of something small and joyful: ten minutes on the sofa watching the OLED with her, a slow plate of pasta or tacos, a trash TV or goofy show that makes her snort. It’s low effort, but it’s intentional—treatments for the soul that don’t show up on a chart.

There’s also something about ritual. Hospitals have rituals—vitals at seven, meds at nine—and pairing that structure with tiny celebrations changed the way we live. Now our routines have double duty: they keep the medical stuff accurate and they create predictable doors to joy.  A stroll down Main Street, peering at the castle, or just popping into one of the shops to see what shirts are new, or browsing through their art gallery. Nothing grand, just routines that secretly protect space for fun.

And the people? Disneyland taught us how to accept help without losing dignity. Cast members find ways to include us, like Fairy Godmother just making a B-line directly to us to just say hello. Strangers will help lift a stroller on the bus to make room or point out the best shady spot. Those small kindnesses reminded me to let others carry some of the load when home life gets heavy—Kelli stopping by and bringing a meal, Nikki showing up with flowers and lottery scratchers at the right time, Vicki staying those extra hours this week while I’m away at the new job.  It’s still our life, but it’s no longer a solo mission.

This doesn’t mean it’s always easy or that we romanticize the hard parts. There are days the medical grind is all there is, and you forget to celebrate anything. There are times I sit on the couch feeling like I failed because I can’t make everything okay. But the “happy little hospital” idea is a compass: when you’re floundering, look for one small thing to point toward life again—one photo, one ride, one ridiculous snack. Those are the stitches that keep you from unraveling.

If I had to boil it down: Disneyland taught us to design joy into our life the same way we design treatment. You don’t wait for a perfect, pain‑free day to have fun. You build the fun into the plan. You accept help. You guard the small moments like they’re precious medications. And when you can, you go find the places—literal or figurative—that say, “Celebrate Happy.”

I don’t know what the next chapter looks like. Maybe Traci’ll get stronger, maybe we’ll keep learning to live inside the pauses, maybe both. But right now, when the day feels heavy, I remember the sign at the park and the photo on her phone, and I get to work translating that into our home: a tiny happy little hospital where treatment and joy sit on the same whiteboard.