Sue is the mother of 6-year old Joey.

My son, Josiah, weighed slightly less than two pounds when he was born ten weeks early in December 1999. He spent several weeks in a neonatal intensive care unit and then joined our family as a
foster child. During his first year, he had heart surgery and was hospitalized for a severe kidney infection. He was diagnosed with mild cerebral palsy, developmental delays, and autoimmune neutropenia (a life threatening blood disorder). His first vitiligo spots appeared when he was fifteen months old after he recovered from scarlet fever. He'd had a red rash (scarletina) on his chest and, as it faded, the places where it had been were white and did not repigment. The vitiligo spread rapidly all over his body while we searched first for a diagnosis and then for an effective treatment.

By the fall of 2004 Joey had become our adopted son. By then, the white spots around his eyes had become so large that it looked like he was wearing a mask. People stared at him and some even made comments. Joey started to realize that he looked different from other children and he became reluctant to go out in public.

Then we were fortunate to be able to attend the AVRF seminar in Florida in June 2005. Everyone was so welcoming and there were all kinds of fun activities. Joey met other children with vitiligo and saw how happy and normal they were. I, as a parent, was able to learn so much about vitiligo both from the experts and from other parents whose problems were so similar to mine. I even learned about a slightly different way to adjust Joey's light therapy treatment that resulted in an almost total repigmentation of the awful circles around his eyes. This year our whole family (Mom, Dad, Joey, and three siblings) attended the seminar. Joey can't wait to go each year and neither can we.

WE SHOULD ALL EMBRACE DIVERSITY!