Pictures

 These are from when the Primary came and sang, so cute!!

Dr. Appt

Today Mom started her next set of treatments as well as meeting with her doctor to go over the sonogram results she had on Monday.  The dr. was very pleased to see the progress made!  She said she doesn't usually see such a big difference after the treatments she just had.  Usually they wait until after the next set of treatments is finished (I wish I knew the names of all the treatments!!) to see this kind of progress made.  Does that make sense?  haha, I'm bad at explaining, but things are looking good!  She will now go in once a week for the next twelve weeks for the next set of chemo and we are all hoping it won't be as bad!  She talked with someone today who has been doing these treatments and she said that so far it has not been nearly as bad as the ones before, so that is good!  The dr. also told her that she can now be in public places and around children as long as she is still careful about germs and sicknesses.  So she doesn't have to stay at home as much, but will probably want to as she more than likely will still be very tired. 

A few days back a group of her primary kids and members of her ward came by the house to sing Christmas carols to the family and it was very cute and really made her day!  I will post some pictures of that as soon as I have them.  Again, thanks to everyone for all their support and help cheering the family up, we are all so very grateful!!

Is the Lump Half Full or Half Empty??!!

Is the lump half full or half empty?? WHO CARES! The lump is HALF the size now as it was before the chemo!!! Great news!! Thursday mom hopes to find out more details and we'll hopefully find out more about the cancer that is spreading through lymph nodes.
Also Thursday, mom starts her new set of treatments with a lovely dose of steroids the night before!! The doctor says these steroids will keep her awake all night, did someone say PARTY!!?! However, the treatment itself is supposed to make her very tired and fatigued.
Good luck and all our love to mom! A friend of mine, Crystal, made the best comment a few weeks ago: "That cancer doesn't know what it's gotten itself in to! Shauna is one tough lady!!" Ain't that the Truth!

Sonogram tomorrow

The days have slowly been getting better and yesterday and today could be considered good days.  We are all very anxious to hear from her tomorrow as she goes in for a sonogram that will tell us what the cancer is doing.  So we are praying that there has been some good progress and that the cancer is leaving her body.  She will probably not get results back until Thursday so we will have to wait until then.  I will for sure post as soon as I know anything.  She also goes in on Thursday to start her next treatments which supposedly will make her very tired and at the same time make it very difficult to sleep.  Hopefully the nausea and stomach problems will not be as bad though!  She has been wearing her new wig out and has a hat that she will sometimes wear over it and always seems to get lots of compliments wherever she goes. 

After a very rough weekend, Mom is finally feeling a little bit better today. That last treatment really worked her over. We're sooo glad that that's the last of that med though! I told mom yesterday that at least that's the last dose, not the first!!!

She was pretty excited to have a piece of pizza for dinner tonight, that rice and banana diet was getting old. ( I told her the diet sounds a lot like 9 month old Mason's...! ) Dad sent Jess and I the funniest picture today via text and UNFORTUNATELY, I'm not able to upload it here. It was mom lying on the couch with Talon the cat and all 3 dogs; Nelly, Bella, and Brewster lying and loving on her. It just made me smile!

Mom was teasing Aidan tonight that she would tickle her with her bald head! She told us that she still has a few pricklies on her head that Talon likes! I guess he sits on the couch and licks her head!! It makes me miss her and wish that I was closer. Feel better Mom, I want to come see you! :)

Getting close

Well yesterday Mom had her final big chemotherapy treatment and I am so glad as that was the last of the big doses she will receive as it has really taken its toll on her body.  She was very sick last night and has spent the day in bed totally exhausted.  I have yet to talk with her to see how she is feeling right now.  She did have a really good week previous to this treatment and spent some quality time with her mom and sister and it sounds like they really had a good time!  She will go in again in two weeks and start weekly treatments that will not take such a big toll on her body.  She also goes in fairly soon for an MRI to see how the cancer is doing, so we are all very anxious to hear what those results have to say.  Hopefully all this miserableness will be the result of something good!  I will post again as soon as I have a little more information.

Give thanks

Tonight as I sit at my computer, while my kids are sleeping in their beds, the dishes are put away and the kitchen cleaned up I reflect on the past couple of days and how grateful I am for all of my many blessings.  Although everyone in my family was in different places this Thanksgiving, everyone had a good time, including my mom.  She had a treatment on Tues. and was planning on not feeling very well at all for Thanksgiving so the boys did the shopping and prepared a Thanksgiving dinner all by themselves.  We were all surprised that Thurs. was actually a pretty decent day and mom was able to enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday, and eat a little bit of the feast, even if it was the boys who cooked it. :)  This was a small miracle in that she has always had her worst day two days after treatment.  So today I am grateful for the tender mercies of the Lord in allowing her and the rest of us to have a very good holiday despite the challenges she is going through.  She didn't feel good for too long and today has been an especially bad one and we pray that the next few will only get better.  She again wants to say Thank you to everyone who has kept her in their prayers as my family has truly felt them.  Even though this is a very hard thing to go through, I am grateful for friends, family and a loving Heavenly Father who have made this journey a little bit easier for her.  So today I give thanks!

Third treatment

Mom had her third treatment yesterday afternoon, so she has one more big treatment to go.  It is really starting to take its toll on her body and she is more than ready to be done, but of course will hang in there for the next one.  Dad and the boys are busy getting a Thanksgiving dinner ready although mom will probably be too sick at that point to enjoy anything.  She usually starts feeling better by the next week though so hopefully she can enjoy something then.  She bought a new wig yesterday, so I will have some pictures to post later.  She sent us a text message with a picture of her with no hair, but very quickly called to make sure that picture would not be going up on the blog.  haha, we'll see - you'll have to be really nice to me mom!  Audrey thought it looked kind of silly and continues to pray for Grandma every night!

Hair Says Who?!!

Jessica's done such a Great job at updating this whole "blog" thing...it's new to me!! So what's new in Shauna's life today?!! A Lovely buzzed head! Any other ladies out there that can say they had their head shaved today?? The bald patches were becoming obvious so Mom decided to take the plunge! Her regular hair lady/stylist shaved her head on the house.

A Mary Kay Rep stopped by the house and offered to show Mom some tips on drawing in her eyebrows and offered to throw a Mary Kay Party/Fundraiser for Mom. What a Great offer! Also delivered to the house today...three more casseroles! (Wishing I lived closer....)

A THANK YOU to the Lovely Karren Harmon for sending Mom a package full of Sconza Chocolate covered almonds. (Again..wishing I lived closer!). For all of you non-Oakdalians, Sconza Candy took over the Hershey plant when those devils decided to outsource to Mexico!

Anyhow, Mom's Visiting Teaching partner made her a scarf and hat set, maybe we'll get Mom to pose for a picture in them... we'll see!

As Jessica has mentioned, it's Great to see all the Love and Support out there! WE LOVE YOU SHAUNA (or should I say SAUNA..) :)

We love mom!

It has been almost a week now since mom went in for her second treatment and things are starting to get a little better.  Thursday was good, Friday starting to get bad and the worst was Saturday.  From that point each day got a little better.  She has been extremely tired, nauseated and her hair is starting to fall out.  Of course any time you talk to her she is upbeat and positive, reminding the rest of us to count our blessing and be grateful for all that we have been given.  She continues to receive so much support from her ward in the form of meals, help around the house, and lots of concern and love.  Her relief society president asked if she would just put an ice chest on the front door so that people could drop food items off without having to bother her and knock on the door.  She will go in for her next treatment on Tues. so Thanksgiving will probably not be the best of days for her.  They are thinking about possibly celebrating with the four of them (Mom, Dad, Blake, Taylor) over the following weekend when she is feeling a little bit better. 

Her hair has started falling out at a rapid rate and she is guessing it will be gone by this weekend.  It is itchy, splotchy and starting to get everywhere so she is thinking about shaving it off sometime soon.  I asked her if we could post a picture of that, but she's not so sure about that.  :)   I don't know if I would be brave enough to do that!  I am glad that things are progressing and am anxious for the next MRI to tell us if the cancer is diminishing and by how much.  While all of us hate what she is having to go through right now, I am so thankful for modern medicine and that her chances of survival are good.  We love you mom!

Pictures

 This is her before her haircut.  She decided it would be easier to get a short haircut before starting to lose it.

 Nelly and her new bling

 And here is the new do.  Very cute if I do say!

I just had to add this picture.  This is how mom spends her evenings, with all of her best friends (except dad of course)  She's just missing her computer on her lap :)

Thank you

As Erica and I are far away in Utah, we have felt a little useless at times when we wish we could be closer to mom to help out.  Thank goodness for good friends and a ward that has more than stepped up to the plate and offered a helping hand.  My parents have had more than a few meals brought over as well as treats and visits to check up on them and make sure everyone was doing okay.  They also let my dad know that they would be at his house over the past weekend to help him put in a sprinkler system for their yard and would be back again as soon as he was ready for the grass to come in.  The relief society president let my mom know that whenever she was ready they would be there to give her whole house a deep cleaning.  When my mom told her that was okay, she had two sons at home to help out, she just laughed and said they might not get to places she would get.  She informed my mom that with the help of a few friends they would do a deep cleaning of bathrooms, kitchens, and would take care of laundry.  Those of you that know my mom know that she is a private person so we will see if she ever accepts this help, but I am very thankful to those who have reached out and let her know that they care! 

Let's get this going

Ok, so after mom got home from Disneyland she met with her doctors and was able to establish what was going to happen for the next chapter in her life.  She would go through four chemotherapy sessions every two weeks at a very high toxic level and then twelve weekly sessions at a lesser toxicity.  While doing this she would have a few MRI's done to see what kind of progress is being made.  If everything goes well then she would undergo surgery to remove the tumor.  While we were all very excited to get things moving and get this all over with, I felt apprehensive about how she would take the treatments and how her body would react.  But we are all very thankful for modern medicine and the probability that this kind of cancer is very curable.  

Mom went in for her first treatment on October 27th and said that it was all very easy.  They inserted a catheter into a shunt that had previously been placed in her chest for the chemo to enter in and it all went very well.  She said she laid on the bed and played around on her computer and after a couple of hours it was all over.  Aside from being very tired it took a couple of days for her to start feeling the effects of the medicine.  She was nauseated and had a hard time eating and was exhausted much of the time but by the end of the second week she was feeling very much back to normal.  Now it would be time for her to go back and do it all over again.  Bring it on!

And so it begins...

When the month of October crept up on me, I was busy thinking about Halloween costumes, family vacations planned for Thanksgiving, and Christmas presents which was fast approaching.  I had no idea I was about to receive a phone call from my mom indicating that she was high risk for breast cancer and was about to undergo a series of testing to find out for sure.  She had no idea this was about to happen either.  It was a surprise for our whole family.  We immediately started praying and fasting for her.  We soon found out that she did have breast cancer and needed to start looking into treatment options and doctors.  While mom was extremely positive and never let on at all how serious this was I think the rest of us were feeling pretty nervous and concerned even though we all know how tough she can be.  We had tentatively planned a family trip to Disneyland with my family, mom, dad and Taylor and she decided that since she would not begin her treatment for a couple of weeks that she was still up for the trip, and so we went.  We had such a great time and I feel so grateful that my kids and I got to spend some time with her before she started treatment and would not be able to be around children for a while.  Erica and Aidan came along too and so it was a fun, happy time before all the "unfun" stuff started happening.  I know she will do great with chemotherapy and everything else she will have to go through and will add my prayers to many others who love her that are being sent to heaven on her behalf.