When we moved to Vancouver I made few friends. The ones I made I will no doubt have for a lifetime.      We have always hoped to give both of our kids the most “normal” life that we can provide, this in part is letting them both play sports… last fall we put both kids in soccer, we were lucky to get a coach who at the first meeting said I have 5 girls and 2 boys I can handle this! And when we went to him to share with him about Madeline he told us about his youngest daughter who has ashama, and what they do during games to make sure she is okay.  He told Madeline at any time just raise your hand and we will get you right off the field… I was so relived and felt like her bubble was intact! The Coach’s family became our second family, really… they have 4 teenage daughters 1 tweener and 2 boys…. And a gaggle of teenage boys because of the teenage girls.      Everyone was happy, especially Madeline.  She made a big friend… Those are her favorite, big girl friends. We had a hard year last with Madeline medically, she was in and out of the hospital with infections because of her back.  The Davis Family supported us the whole year, my house was always clean when I came home.  It was like I had a fairy, and I did I had two, named Shellie and Coral.  My Dog thought that their house was hers too. Kinda sad.  Shellie always had food in my freezer each time I came home, it was amazing. The whole year, every time we had to go. And we had to all the time. She has 7 kids and she was taking care of my family too.   Madeline as she does a lot of the time when she is in the hospital, takes control of food.  She did this in a big way last year, and again the Davis family came along side.  Amanda would come and eat and encourage her to eat. What a good BIG GIRL FRIEND!!! I will never forget the way she took the time to love a little girl and show her that taking care of herself is COOL!    Shellie sent me an e-mail that was a post that Amanda wrote on her My Space. It touch my Soul… I think it will touch yours too.

A FRIEND TO REMEMBER I was at my 6year old little brothers soccer game when I met a little girl named Madeline. She is a wonderful little girl who is about the same age as my little brother, she looked so happy when she kicked that soccer ball right into the goal! This little girl touched my life so much. Madeline was born with cancer in her spine, so she had to get surgery, of course, to get rid of it. Luckily, she is now cancer free. Because of the surgery so young, she now has a bad case of scoliosis in her spin where the cancer used to be. Since that time when she was a little girl who had to get surgery on her spin, she has had about 50 surgeries on her little body in a six year time span. My mom and her mom became very good friends. She had a brother who was only a little bit older than my brother so they became good friends also. Madeline was the only girl in her family so she really wanted to hang out with some other girlsJ . So she and I hung out whenever her mom came over. She was just so cute because usually whenever she came over she would bring me a picture or painting she did. I still have the pictures she drew me on my wall. Sadly, her dad was transferred by his job to move from Vancouver to TexasL . When I had to say goodbye to that little girl, it was one of the hardest things. She wanted to invite me to her birthday party and everything. Everyone in my family was really sad that they had to move because everyone knew somebody in their family. Even though she was born with cancer and now has scoliosis, she was and still is one of the happiest little girls I have ever seen. I just wanted to say thank you to her for showing me no matter what situation you are in you can always be happy. We all love you and miss you being here!