Tim Tebow has just made a girl's dream come true.
In a report by the Huffington Post, Tebow granted the wish of an 18-year-old girl, Haley Burke of Kingsport, Tennessee, who suffers from Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. The disease adversely affects the connective tissues of the individual and is deemed life-threatening.
In a blog post by the Jacksonville Business Journal, the request was made back in 2011 when Burke was still 15 years old and Tebow was still part of the Denver Broncos. While Burke was confined in the hospital, she requested to personally meet Tebow via Make-A-Wish and she also got in touch with the Tim Tebow Foundation. Her request finally came through and she was given the golden opportunity to spend some time with her dream athlete in July 2014.
For the "W15H Wednesday" program, Tebow flew Burke and her family to Scottsdale, Arizona and prepared accommodations for them in a presidential suite at the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess Resort. The family stayed in Arizona for four days and three nights. The teenage patient spent the day getting pampered at a spa and going on a helicopter tour to see the Grand Canyon. She threw the first pitch at an Arizona Diamondbacks baseball game and joined Tebow in a workout session. She also had dinner with Tebow and took several photos with him. The idea of the program is to have Tebow realize the dreams of children dealing with serious illnesses.
"He's such a nice guy. He's everything you would expect him to be, but 10 times better. He came up behind me and put his hands on my shoulders and asked me if I cared if he had dinner with me. I was ecstatic!" She added, "My time with Tim has made me feel more confident and more encouraged to keep going. So many times you feel that it is just too hard to get through one more day. But now that I've met him and he's given me such encouragement, it just makes me want to keep fighting," Burke said, as quoted by the Huffington Post.
According to People Magazine, Tebow said, "They're amazing. The entire time I was with them, I was so inspired by their strength and courage in facing every day and every struggle with a positive attitude." He added, "The W15H program allows me to keep a great perspective on life. I always begin the wish hoping to have a positive impact on these children, but every time, I'm the one who has been impacted the most."