Wallingford girl, 5, battling serious brain disorder gets new best friend
Pam McLoughlin
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Vada Shapiro, 5, of Wallingford kisses her new puppy, Penny.Aliza Shapiro / Contributed photo
WALLINGFORD When Aliza Shapiro asked her ill 5-year-old daughter Vada, “If you could have anything you want, what would you have?” the child said, “a cookie.”
When told to give another answer, Vada responded, “a unicorn.”
Vada, who suffers from a rare, debilitating nervous system disorder involving a hemisphere of the brain, actually got her third choice a puppy. And now, she has something better than a cookie or unicorn Vada has “a best friend,” her mother said.
It’s late and you’re exhausted. You barely had time to eat dinner and shower after work. Maybe you watched a few episodes of a show, read a chapter of your book, struggled through your skin-care routine. Now you’re in bed, and you know you should sleep. But you keep scrolling past the point that feels good. Your eyes start to close and you have to be up at 5 a.m. for work, but you’re not ready for rest. Some part of you is unsatisfied.
This activity has a name: bedtime revenge procrastination.
It’s a phrase popularized by millennials and Gen Z in China, which literally translates to “sleepless night revenge,” Sandra, a 24-year-old Mandarin speaker living in Paris, told