JOHNNY-DEPP.org

“I am 15 years old and have a disease called Cystic Fibrosis. Although this disease is considered potentially fatal, I am VERY healthy. I’m sure that as far as this disease is concerned, I’ll live a very long and happy life. I am pretty open about it, so if you have any questions about it, feel free to ask, or you can visit www.cff.org

The disease mostly affects the lungs and stomach, but puts a heavy strain on all of the organs. Of course for every patient it varies a little. As I said, I am very healthy, as I ran on our cross country team, beginning track, and even play the flute. I take pills whenever I eat, and do a daily treatment. Beside a few other pills including vitamins and whatnot, that is about it.

Throught the Make-A-Wish Foundation (www.wish.org) I was offered a wish. My first idea of a wish was to go on a Disney cruise. It had never crossed my mind to meet Johnny! lol : ) The cruise didn’t quite pan out, and so one day I was without a wish idea sitting on the computer at the johnnydeppzone, and my mom comes over to me and says I should consider meeting Johnny.

I thought about it, and remembered how my CF doctor had told me that sometimes meeting celebrities didn’t work out the best, so I wondered what the right desicion should be. I worried he wouldn’t be how I imagined, and didn’t want to waste a wish that could be great. I waited a while and thought about it pretty hard. This might sound pretty corny, but this is what confirmed it for me.

(I’m not even sure if I’ve told anybody this before! I forgot about it until now! lol) One day I was cleaning my room, and happened to be thinking about my wish, and whether or not I should choose to meet Johnny or not. There I was thinking about him, and I find this rubber eyeball on my floor. I had Never seen it before…so it was Very odd. It was one of those 25cent machine eyeballs that squish a little bit, but looked real. I picked it up, puzzled, looked at it, and then I’m like, “woah!”. I immediately thought of Pirates of the Caribbean and the poor pirate without an eye. For me, that was my sign of meeting Johnny! lol : ) I remember now how excited I was. From then on, I was telling everyone that I’d decided to meet Johnny, and hopefully one day it would happen, and how I’d keep my little eyeball forever. Just a few days later I had lost it. Boy was I sad. I even thought I should change my wish, maybe it was a mistake, but decided that since I’d already told my doctor that I’d meet Johnny, I should just stick with it; so I did.

My mom got a call from my wish organizer one day saying that if we wanted to, we might want to change the wish because Johnny was very busy, and they weren’t sure if they’d be able to get me to see him anytime soon. I thought about it, and decided that I’d wait. My mom told them my decision, and barely a week later they told us to pack up-we were going to London in a week to meet Mr. Johnny Depp.

After completely flipping out, I calmed down (a little) and could hardly believe it was coming true, ya know? How could this simple little girl, from this simple little town actually get a chance to fulfill her dream? It didn’t make sense to me. I’m still not quite sure I deserved it. The whole thing was so great. The Make-A-Wish Foundation made everything wonderful, Johnny absolutely couldn’t have been any better…things were just perfect.

It truly was a dream come true. I still kind of feel bad though. I mean, I am such a healthy person, as if that isn’t enough, these wonderful people give me a wish that could’ve easily been used for another sicker kid who deserved it more. But it was me, I got the wish.

Two other girls besides myself were shipped off to London from Tuolumne County, California (me); San Diego, California; and I believe Vancover, Canada. Two of us were in the same hotel, and even went venturing out one of the days in London, and the other girl and her family were stationed in another hotel. I was the second to meet Johnny. My date was November eleventh, 2004, which also happened to be my fathers birthday (he was not able to join me. I had my mother and aunt with me).

We spent several days in London having a good time with some pre-arranged activites paid for by Make-A-Wish. They paid for our airfare, room, and most activities, and on top of that, they gave us over $3,000 dollars spending money for food, taxi, extra activites. As you can see, they were overly generous.

Already having an awesome week, I was scared to death that my Wednesday (nov.11) would be a disaster. Never in my life have I just had a dang near perfect week. That morning I was freaking out. In our room while we were getting ready, I was contemplating running off before our limo showed up, just not going to see him. My nerves were going haywire. In the limo before we arrived at Pinewood studios out side of London, I planned on staying with the driver, or camping out in the bathroom. I was nearly in tears, and we hadn’t even arrived yet. Then of course the trip over there was shorter than it was said to be, which was just freaking me out even more.

We finally found where we were supposed to go after popping into a few rooms. All of my plans of abandomment weren’t going to work…I was gonna have to go. We arrived on set of Charlie and the Charlie Factory, the movie he was currently filming. They sat us down in these nice chairs that you see the stars sitting in (you know the kind…I eventually got to sit in Johnny’s seat too!), and we were given headphones and a screen so we could see and hear what they were filming.

By now, I was really getting nervous. I didn’t know if I’d be able to talk in front of him, if I would cry, if I would scream…I just had no idea. My eyes were welling up as I saw him. I actually saw him in person. He walked up to Tim Burton (the director, duh! lol) and he was in costume and everything. I felt my mouth drop. Again my eyes welled up and I thank God that he didn’t walk up to me yet. He filmed another take, and then worked his way over to me. Between seeing him film and him coming over to me, I somehow calmed myself down. I don’t know how I did it, but I wasn’t freaking out.

There were three ladies with me. Two of which were “with Johnny”. I believe they were his press/people persons. I really don’t remember what they said, I just know they were associated with him one way or another. The other lady was my Make-A-Wish representative. Sarah, one of Johnny’s people, was facing me talking, and Johnny came up behind her, kind of hiding. He kind of stood behind her, hunched a bit. She noticed we were all looking happily behind her, so she turned around, and out popped Johnny! lol

From there, we were introduced to him, and he greeted each of us with a little handshake. I was shocked, and barely muttered a ‘hi’. After he went down the line, meeting all of us that he didn’t know, he came back over to me, and started talking to me. The very first thing he said (so cute) was, “First off, let me appologize for how I look.”! He was in costume, and apparently found it to be very odd looking, I however thought he was adorable looking. From there, most all of my nervousness was gone. He really was an ordinary, loving, caring, polite, generous sweet guy! He has this power to make you calm. You just aren’t nervous around him! lol He was very easy, and very fun to talk to, not a dull moment at all.

After a few hours of watching him film, we toured some of the set, and watched as he finished up filming. I met a few who worked on or in the movie, that was just a bonus. Because they wanted to keep the movie underwraps, and not let everyone in the world know about it yet, I was not allowed to take pictures yet. Not of Johnny, not of the set, not even of the floor! lol : )

After Johnny changed back into normal clothes, he met up with my group in a fully furnished room on set. It was just like a little tiny house! There was a very small bathroom, 2bedrooms, and a living type sitting room. We were set up in there, and waited a little bit for him to come in. When he came in, I was nervous again, but that didn’t last long. I loved it how he came right over to me and sat down on the love seat type couch that I was sitting on.

I can’t go into total detail right now, because I’m just now noticing how long this is! lol We had a lovely time talking, he signed several pictures and things for me, and I got lots of kisses.

I hope you enjoyed, and you weren’t bored, and I didn’t drag it on! lol : )

All the pictures of Ivy’s experience together can be found in our galleries, HERE.