Little girl's dying wish...please help!!

[ShortFuse_LPN, LPN]

I wasn't sure where to post this..hope this is ok. A nurse that I work with saw a flyer at the post office about this little girl. She is 10 yo with cancer (don't know exact type). Her dying wish is to break the Guiness World record for the most greeting cards ever recieved. Please send this little girl a card and pass her address to anyone who would also send one. Thank you. Her address is:Faith Hoenstein, 3229 Burnette Ave, Cincinnati OH, 45229-3095

[cna on her way]

Thats a wonderful thought. I worked on the oncology floor for over a year and just recently moved to peds. I will pass this address on to my old nurse manager up there and see if they will also try to send some cards.

[OBNURSEHEATHER]

Found at Snopes.com (an urban legends reference website) :

[Collected on the Internet, 2001]

Faith is a little girl with a rare form of cancer. She has had to have both arms and legs amputated. This cancer will eventually take her life. Her wish is to be in the Guiness Book of World Records for getting the most get well cards. I believe she is 10 years old. Please take the time to make her wish come true.

Faith Hoemspine

c/o Shriners Hospital

3229 Burnet Avenue

Cincinnati Ohio

45229-3095

(The appeal, with the girl's name correctly spelled as "Faith Hoenstine," was being circulated on the Internet in 1999.)

Once again, the plight of a real person has managed to spark a false appeal for cards. The youngster and her travails are real, but the request for cards is not, nor is the resulting deluge of mail welcome.

Faith Hoenstine, who was 15 in 2001, has been through mulitiple amputations and was treated at the Shriners Hospital in Cincinnati. (She has had both legs amputated above the knees, her left arm above the elbow, and the fingers and most of the thumb on her right hand. The Shriners' famed burn care unit effected the skin grafts necessary to ease the girl's recovery from such drastic surgeries.)

She does not have cancer -- her condition was brought about by a bacterial infection. At no time did she express an interest in collecting the most get well cards or in any other fashion look to set a Guinness record. The family speculates the now widespread Internet appeal was begun by an anonymous well-wisher in their area. All they know is it didn't begin with them.

Folks at the Cincinnati Shriners Hospital have had to field a number of inquiries about this specious appeal. Faith's family has been swamped in incoming mail (about 10,000 pieces a week in late 2001, down from a mid-2001 peak of 50,000.) "We'd like this to stop," said her father, Donald.

Heather

[cna on her way]

Well I am thankful that you said something before I actually went to the oncology nursing department to try and get a little "Fund" going!

[ShortFuse_LPN, LPN]

Thanks for the info. Will pass this on to my co workers who are sending cards.

[shygirl]

Thanks Heather!