Hi! I’m Dave,

I believe that my wife, Amy, and I had real love from the beginning.  I met her at a barbecue at the house of a mutual friend. I was sitting by myself on a couch when a small redheaded woman approached me and shyly introduced herself to me saying, “Hi, my name is Amy, can I sit by you.”

When I looked at her, we instantly liked each other, and we’ve been together ever since.  We dated for a little over a year and a half before getting married. We’ve now been married for almost 13 years. 

After knowing her for a few days she told me that she was born with an extremely rare genetic chronic illness called cystinosis. It is a deficiency of protein synthesis in the cells.  It has been painful to live with and has made her life difficult in so many ways, with so many additional health problems that stem from it.  She told me that most guys lost interest in her after learning this information about her.

I lost no interest in Amy, however.  Instead I was all-the-more interested in her!  I thought she was a very impressing person to be able to live with the difficult effects of her condition and still work full time in her profession as a child-life specialist.  She worked with kids in hospitals, and she also did unpaid volunteer work with kids at a children’s bereavement center in Salt Lake.

We’ve managed this disease together for all these years now and have shared a special meaning through it all.  Our shared meaning is something that is always getting deeper and more special, with more and more layers to it all the time. 

She is my best-friend, my, hero, and my favorite person in the world.