Meet & Greet Lunch with Nels Matson

Meet Nels Matson!

Join us for lunch with Nels Matson, who is running 1,200 miles in 35 days from Bradenton, FL, to the Royal Embassy of Cambodia in Washington, D.C. 

Broken Hearts of Florida will host lunch for Nels and Diplo on Sunday, June 23, from 1 to 3 p.m. at Chili's at 3530 S.W. Archer Road, Gainesville. RSVP for lunch through our Facebook event page, or email us at info@brokenheartsflorida.org and let us know you are attending the lunch and how many will be with you. 

If you or your child has a congenital heart defect, come out and sign Diplo, the Diplomatic Penguin, who is riding on Nels’ back. You’ll also have a chance to meet Nels’ Gainesville Heart Diplomat, Sage Pridemore, a local CHD survivor.

Nels, Denise and Diplo at Broken Hearts' May Day Picnic. 

There are about 100,000 children in Cambodia who have congenital heart disease; very few are treated. Nels is running to fund heart surgeries for these children through Hearts Without Boundaries. Nels was saved by an open-heart surgery when he was a toddler, and wants to give these children the same opportunity at life he was given!

Nels’ journey began June 15 in Bradenton. Diplo the penguin will be given as a gift and symbol of support to the children receiving the heart surgeries in Cambodia.

For more information about Tri4Number1 Run, visit http://www.t41run.com/.

A Picture That Paints a Thousand Words

Nels Matson, left, and my son, William, pull down the collars of their shirts
and show each other their scars from open-heart surgery. They both have
versions of partial anomalous pulmonary venous return. Nels' heart was
repaired when he was 4; William when he was 2.

At school tomorrow, William is supposed to bring pictures of himself and tell his class about them. Do you know what pictures he wanted to bring? The ones that tell his heart story. Wow! Lately, especially, he's been so reluctant to tell people about his heart, even hiding his scar. 

But I think the Broken Hearts' May Day Picnic helped him get past that. He got to see dozens of other kids, some with much more noticeable scars than his own, running around bare-chested, oblivious and proud of their bodies. At first, he wouldn't take off his T-shirt to go down the slide. Later, I couldn't get him to put his shirt back on.

I think one of the biggest highlights, though, was meeting Nels Matson (athletes4heart). I had tried all day to get William to talk to Nels but he was having nothing to do with it. Toward the end of the day when the crowds had thinned and William had pulled himself up to a table, munching on left over chips, Nels slyly sat at the table at William's height and started talking to him about William's three beloved bicycles. The rest, as they say, is history. 

Nels and William have similar heart defects -- different versions of partial anomalous pulmonary venous return. While heart defects aren't rare, this particular one is rare, and William's version (scimitar syndrome) is even rarer. So Nels was talking to William about his surgery and told William that he had had surgery, too, and that they both had scars. And with that ... they pulled their collars down and showed each other their scars! 

This picture paints a thousand words!
Thank you, Nels, for helping my son see he's not alone.