Friendship is Priceless...'nuf said.

I saw a quote once, "A friend is someone who is there for you when they'd rather be somewhere else."  Well, last night I got to meet up with four other 'Nevus' families who I have come to know under circumstances we never expected.  The Nagels from South Dakota have little Sully who has gone through two full rounds of expansion surgery.  Little Sully had surgery on Thursday night and was up walking around in his Super Sully cape last night!  The Vances from Montana who are my new next door neighbors in this hotel and parents to little Brooklyn, a few months older than Zac.  Brooklyn will be having surgery the same day as Zac!  There is no doubt Merilee and I will be bonded for life through our events on Thursday AND...The Meltons, my friends from Chandler, AZ (woot, woot) who I have been so lucky to have met earlier this year and am even luckier that they live in AZ.  Christine Melton forged a turning point in my life this year.  Let me tell you how I met her....

Zac had just finished having his MRI (I didn't mention in my earlier post that one of the challenges of CMN is a condition called NCM.  If you are curious about NCM, click here.  Luckily, NCM was not detected on Zac's MRI)  Our pediatric dermatologist called to give us the results of our MRI and shared with us that  1) there was another baby born in AZ 4 days after Zac with a large nevus! (1 in 500,000, imagine that!!)  2) that they were very nice people who had been to the Nevus Outreach Conference in TX  3) would we like to meet them.  Dr. Price gave Christine my phone number and she called me right away.  The enthusiasm I heard in her voice about what she learned at this conference changed my life. She was so warm and friendly, knowledgeable and smart and so amazing.  In talking to her for 45 minutes, I was as educated as if I had attended the conference myself.  The Nevus Outreach Conference happens only once every 2 years.  I missed out on going because after talking to our first pediatric dermatologist, we did not think there was anything that could be done with Zachary's nevus at such a young age.  After talking to Christine, I learned about nevus, expanders and best of all Dr. Bauer in Chicago.  She told me that he actually likes to start children young because the skin heals better, is more pliable and they recover quicker.  So, I am so thankful that God placed Christine in my path.  She has given me strength, comfort and inspiration.  And with her friendship came so many other fabulous nevus family friends.  I cannot tell you what it has meant to be able to meet such wonderful people along this journey.

Here we are at our 'family reunion' of sorts.  Christine and Josh, me and Zachary, Beth and Merilee with Brooklyn.  I love you girls!  Muah!

And here is Zac in his new SUPER HERO Cape from his Aunt Beth!  We will be wearing this for all surgeries.  He needs a good super hero name though...don't you think?