"Be Positive!" Join us in a Card Shower

I'm helping my friend, Shanna, get the word out in regards to a card shower for a 13 year old girl named Jessie. If you have the time, please put a card in the mail for her to brighten her day and show your support! :) I know it would mean the world to her. Feel free to pass on the info too. Thank you! xoxoxo Shauna

Hello everyone! I am writing about someone really special and I would love your help. Jessie is a 13 year old girl in my son's junior high class. She is a sweet, young lady that is battling bone cancer. Jessie is undergoing chemo and has already endured surgeries for both the cancer and to reinflate her lungs. This girl has been through a lot since her recent diagnosis at the end of April. I am currently organizing a card shower for Jessie, so if you are interested in participating, please do so!! The idea is that everyone would send a card to the P.O. box listed below and we would then be able to deliver a bundle of good wishes to Jessie. This little girl would love to get good wishes from all over!! Jessie's theme is "Be positive" or "B+", like her bloodtype. Isn't that cool!??! Thanks for taking the time to be a part of this. I appreciate it!


Mailing info:
"B+" Jessie
P.O. Box 538
Monrovia, CA 91017

Thanks, everyone!Shanna

I'm Featured!!!

Wow, that was fast! I just gave the interview yesterday!

I'm the featured writer for Write Around Portland. Check it out!

Just got back from getting unplugged from my chemo pump, "Fillup". Glad to be free again. Now to survive the next few days of not feeling particularly well.

Dave and my dad will be carting my daughter to her soccer tourney out in Hillsboro for me this weekend. I hate to miss those. HOpefully once we get my chemo schedule back on track (Memorial Day Holiday messed it up), I will be front and center for the rest of them this summer. Being a soccer mom is my favorite sport and job!

My cold trigger is not as pronounced as the previous times I did this type of chemo and the buzzing in my feet have gone back to deadness, which I much prefere. Now to see what the next two days bring. Maybe I'll have an easier time this go round.

Wondering what movies are out this weekend. Next week is our last week of school. Pet Day and Field Day and Ice Cream Sundae Days await us. I'm bummed today I had to miss the Egg Drop in 3rd grade to get my pump disconnected. I remember Spencer's Egg Drop and what a fun day that was. They had to design containers to house fresh eggs using all recyclable materials. The teacher drops each from the roof of the classroom and then opens up each one to see if the egg broke or was still intact. It's quite amazing the stuff they come up with! I hope Kaelin's egg survived! I guess I'll miss out on the photo ops. Wah!!!

I hope you get a chance to read my interview. Thanks for checking in with me here!

Love to you all! Enjoy your weekends!
xoxoxo
Shauna

A Rare and Necessary Time

A Rare and Necessary Time is the name of the Write Around Portland Anthology that was released tonight. It contains the powerful words of participants in 18 workshops held across the greater Portland area this spring. If you're interested, you can purchase copies SOON from the bookstores listed here. You can find my piece on page 139!



What a powerful night as each participant walked up to the microphone to read their wonderful words, each one a gift in itself. Each one touching a different part of you. So many different walks of life participated in these workshops. It was amazing to see them all together in one room and to see the safety they felt sharing their work outloud and in print with the rest of us. And the support and respect the audience gave each and every one of them. Very powerful and moving.

We had two rows of women and their guests from my Woman Living with Stage IV Metastatic Cancer Support Group. What a great fan club they were for each other! Paris and my mom came along and we picked up Penny on the way. (thanks so much for driving Paris!)

As we were finding our seats, I look up and see Fran, my daughter's 2nd Grade teacher! She tells me she is here to listen to John, her 2nd grade teaching assistant, read his piece (on page 149). He was a participant in a workshop put on with the Dougy Center (children and families that are grieving). He read immediately after me. It was so powerful and moving. I was so glad I could be there to share in that moment and to hear him read his piece about his brother.

Cancer is a beast, but it has opened some doors and connected me with amazing people, such as my support group, The Living with Life Threatening Disease Class I'm a patient teacher for and the Writing Around Portland Workshop. It has connected me to people I wouldn't have met otherwise. Special, amazing people. Doing special, amazing, brave things. They are all my heroes and heroines of the stories. They inspire me. Thanks for that.

Update on today:

My chemo went longer than I expected/remembered. I met with a doctor at 8:30am and then was infused and didn't get done until 2pm, so I missed my group today. They sent me home with a pump of 5FU, attached to my port and it must go with me everywhere until Friday. I start my nupregen shots on Sunday, have next week off and then back to it on Monday, June 11th. It's amazing that as soon as they started the Oxcilliplatten drip, I could feel the neuropathy in my feet intensify and really start buzzing. Whereas before they just felt "dead", now they are buzzing nonstop and that's really annoying and uncomfortable. The cold trigger started right away too, but it's not as intense as I remember it being before.

I did get a treat today in the chemo suite, actually two of them. Two very special women were there infusing at the same time as I was. I can't say it was a treat from their perspective though, as they were getting chemo. But I got the chance to get a hug from someone dear to my son and our family and to see that she's doing well and staying strong and positive. It was nice to check in on her every now and then and meet her husband. I wish her well. I also had the treat of meeting a fabulous lady that had read my blog and emailed me out of the blue and share our stories. I was so excited to meet her and she found me via my dragonfly glasses! She too lives in Beaverton and has a young family and stage 4 cancer. She was full of smiles and laughs and positive energy and it was just a treat to be in her presence! I don't want to say any names in case of patient confindentiality, since I didn't get their permission to mention our encounters. I want to respect their privacy. They know who they are and some of you may too! Big hugs going out to you girls this chemo week!!!! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxox

I'm now off to bed to snuggle with my pump of 5FU. Darn thing snores! I think he needs a name. I know I won't be kissing him goodnight. It's like being chained to your idea of the least compatible person for two days and nights in some bad trainwreck of a reality show. I'm thinking F... U are good choices for the abbreviation of the chemo in the pump. If you know what I mean. Frank? Fred? Fillup? lol hmmmm...maybe Fillup? a play on Phillip but with the F and U from the 5FU. And it's filling me up. I think that fits. Fillip it is. :) Any objections? Have all of you chemo girls named your pumps?

Sweet Dreams Loved ones.
Thanks again for the support and for reading my blog and checking in on me. It means the world to me.

xoxox
shauna

ps. prepare yourselves, i'm going dark tomorrow with my thoughts. it's only appropriate being chemo week and all.

pss. my son's not going to get better enough to drive him up to mt. st. helens to meet up with his class. :( but his appetite is improving, his ear ache is improving, but his cough is just wicked insane!!!! he coughs so hard he throws up!!! (TMI!) I do think he's sleeping better too. Now it's a matter of gaining his strength and energy back. You should see how skinny he is. You thought he was skinny before. He's a toothpick now!!!!

Poetry Reading

Everyone is invited to attend the Spring Anthology Release Party and Community Reading sponsored by Write Around Portland tomorrow night, Wednesday, May 28th 6:30-8:30pm at The First Methodist Church in Collins Hall 1838 SW Jefferson (at the Goose Hollow Max stop).



I will be reading In the Valley of the Shadow of Death, which is included in the anthology ( a collection of writings from the writing workshop participants, which will be available to purchase at Powell's Books). Other participants will be reading their writings as well. Would love to see any of you there who enjoy that sort of thing. It's been such a healing thing for me and a great way to express my fears and feelings regarding my situation. The writings by the participants are very powerful and moving.

I was also asked by my Writing Workshop coordinator to be their featured writer on their homepage! They want to interview me this week and take my photo. :) I'm so honored. I'll let you know when they post it!

Update on our lives:

Spencer hasn't gotten any better (except for his ears!) so he stayed home from his 7th Grade class trip to Mount Saint Helens today. They are going to be gone thru Friday, so if he's feeling better we may coordinate a ride up for him Thursday. He hasn't been sleeping or eating and has no energy or stamina and is suffering bad headaches and vision problems too. He woke up with crusted over eyes and I'm wondering if he may have pink eye too??? When it rains, it pours.

Kaelin had today off of school (teacher writing report day) and she went to a 3rd grade class swim party at The Sunset Athletic Club to celebrate Beatrice's birthday. What a great place and what fun they all had! Now we are off to soccer practice. Tomorrow and Thursday Kaelin has field trips and Friday is the Egg Drop (more on that later!).

Tomorrow I start my aggressive chemo again, with an 8:30am appt. with the doctor and then the Folfox/avastin. I will be infused for several hours (oxcillaplatten and avastin) and then sent home with a portable pump of 5FU for a couple days. Friday I will be unhooked and then usually the next 2 days I will be completely and utterly wiped out, so with the holiday, I will be down Sat. and Sun. and will miss Kaelin's soccer tourney. :( Wah!!!!! I will get next week (the last week of school!) off and then chemo again the following week. Unfortunately, I'll be going every other week for chemo as long as I can stand the horrid side effects of naropathy and the cold trigger.

Thanks for reading this far and for checking in with me/us!!!

xoxox
Shauna

How I Met Your Mother

Saturday it cleared up long enough for us to go wine tasting/winery touring with our friends, The Kamin Family, from out of town (California). The last time we had seen Steve was when he came to visit us 12 years ago. This time he came with his wife Tara and their beautiful 13 month daughter, Sydney Claire. We had trouble getting together earlier in the week due to Spencer's birthday, Kaelin's portfolio night and other commitments. But the weather cooperated on Saturday and we went wine tasting/touring in Newberg. We went to Ayers and The Brickhouse. I can't drink alcohol due to the 10" of intestines missing etc. but I sure enjoyed the scenery and company and what great photo ops! Dave isn't really a wine drinker and after passing on the first winery, he partook in the second and was very pleasantly suprised at how much he liked it and enjoyed the taste! Steve and Tara didn't want to lug the glasses home, so we have some great souveneirs! I highly recommend winery touring/wine tasting for a way to spend a nice sunny day, especially if you have out of town guests!

A little history lesson...

Steve's apartment is where Dave and I met on April 28th in 1990. Dave and Steve lived in the same apt. complex in Santa Monica. Steve was throwing a suprise birthday party for his girlfriend at the time, Kris Miller, who happened to be a good friend of mine. So my friends and I were there to celebrate. I used to have a crush on Dave when he played basketball at UCLA, but I had never met him and he graduated 2 years before I did. My crush moved onto Troy Aikman, our star quarterback, so I had forgotten about Dave when we were at this party. Out of sight, out of mind. LOL We had all gone out the night before partying, so we weren't really up for a party, but we went anyways because Kris meant a lot to us. My roommate Sheila pointed Dave out to me, "That's Dave Immel over there." And I said "That's not Dave Immel, I would know Dave Immel if I saw him." He was watching Star Trek on the TV and my friend Rachel was giving him a hard time, pretending she liked it too. Before I knew it, my friend Kris dragged Dave over to me, introduced us by saying "Shauna, this is Dave. Dave, this is Shauna. She likes sports too." And then he noticed the big scar on my left leg (ACL reconstruction) and we began talking about surgeries (he had a lot of them). He asked me what section of the newspaper I read first. I said "sports" and it was all over. He says he was hooked! It seemed like it was that point that my friends were ready to leave and they dragged me with them (they were driving). I so didn't want to go. I had a boyfriend at the time. He played soccer at UCLA. I left thinking that nothing would ever come of that encounter. A few days later I got a suprise phone call. Dave had asked Steve, who had asked Kris, for my number and he called me! It was the last person in the world I expected to call me! I was scheduled to go to Catalina with my boyfriend and his family for the weekend over Cinco de Mayo. But Dave had asked me out and I couldn't say no. So I lied to my boyfriend and told him I had a bunch of homework I had to do. Dave and I went on our first date on Cinco de Mayo, I think we even double dated with Steve and Kris. Our date went so well that after that weekend, I had to break up with my boyfriend, who happened to be the sweetest and nicest guy, but I knew Dave was the one for me. I lied and told my boyfriend that I was getting ready to graduate (he was an underclassman) and that I was going to move away so it would be easier to break up now than later. My roommate Sheila and I had planned on moving to Sun Valley and being ski bunnies after we graduated. But then I met Dave and everything changed (Sheila went to Sun Valley though!). I felt so bad hurting him by breaking up, I didn't want to hurt him more by telling him I had met someone else. He showed up at graduation with flowers for me. Dave showed up at my graduation party at my apartment afterwards and met my whole family. We dated for 2 months after I graduated and then we moved in together and we've been together ever since. We moved to Portland in late summer/early fall of 1990 and then we moved to Australia where Dave played pro basketball and I played on the NSW state women's team that Dave coached and got to tour with the men's team. It was a great way to see the country (we traveled by bus) and we met and made so many wonderful friends. We moved to Kent after our year downunder and then to Seattle. We were engaged for two years before we got married (my wedding had to be perfect and we wanted to get married on the 3oth, as Dave's jersey number was #30), as well as the dryest day of the year (the last weekend in July). So we were married July 30th, 1994. We went to Disneyworld for our honeymoon and it was there that the magic of Disney blessed us with conceiving Spencer, who just this week turned 13.

So thanks Steve for playing a big part in our relationship. For had you not thrown that suprise party for Kris, we wouldn't have met and lived happily ever after (or as close as we can get to it minus the stupid cancer). Thanks for taking time out of your busy lives to come visit and bless us with your presence and for stirring up memories of the good ole days!

xoxox

Shauna

PS. Kaelin and I went to see Indiana Jones today (Sunday). We enjoyed it! We finally got thru the first 3 movies on DVD.

PSS. Took Spencer to the Urgent Care today. Turns out he has an ear infection and Bronchitis due to his allergy symptoms turning into ear/lung infections. He's not contagious, but he's probably going to miss his class trip Tues - Friday to Mount Saint Helens. They are camping and hiking and caving and learning about volcano's etc. for the week. Bummer.

Thirteen Candles

Little Dude's now a teenager!!!

Today is my first born's 13th Birthday. 13 years ago today, I was in Ballard Hospital in Seattle with my husband by my side and a whole army of friends and family pulling an all nighter in the waiting room, anxiously awaiting "Roo's" arrival. 13 years ago today, our lives changed forever. We became parents. Our parents became grandparents and our siblings became uncles and aunts. Most importantly, I became a mother. It was the greatest day of my life.

In typical Spencer fashion, he took his own sweet time coming out. Happy and content where he was and not very motivated or eager to leave his warm, comfortable surroundings just yet. Just like now, he needed to be pushed and prodded to get going. He needed to be nudged. I pushed for 3 hours as he held strong and refused to leave his warm confines. His home of the last nine months.

The doctor got all dressed up in some sort of HASMET (sp?) type suit and tried to vaccuum him out with a machine that looked like something the men from "Ghostbusters" carried. But he was all turned sideways, refusing to budge. A specialist was called in to "extract" him, like a dentist removing wisdom teeth. This doctor was considered an expert in the Forceps department, having delivered over 10,000 babies that way over the years. He reached in, grabbed him with the forceps, turned him and "extracted" him. It's no wonder he was stuck, what with his size 15+ head and all!

I laugh now thinking about it. Realizing Spencer is who he is. That he was born that way. That even the doctor had to drag him out of the womb, kicking and screaming, just as I have had to drag him any and everywhere, still kicking and screaming because he's just happy to stay home and chill. Just as he was 13 years ago today.

I'm very excited and grateful to begin this journey into teenagehood with him. There have been periods where I wasn't sure I'd even make it to this point to see him turn 13. People say that kids grow up so fast and that you don't want to be in a rush to see them grow up. For me, and my situation, I'm very thankful that they do grow up fast. I could be living on borrowed time and I want to pack in and experience as much as their life journeys with them in the time I have left.

So I am very excited about Birthday #13 and all that it brings and I can't wait until #14 rolls around!!

Happy Birthday Little "Roo." (his nickname when he was in my belly and we didn't know what sex he was).

xoxoxox

Mom aka Shauna

PS. Tonight we celebrated at his favorite restaurant, The Sushi Boat, where he ordered Udon Soup and opened up his gifts: his first cell phone from us, a Bleach Wii Video game from Kaelin and Tien Tae Jitsu lessons (he's an orange belt) for the summer from GRannie SEattle! He scored!!! AFter dinner he got some Mochi Ice cream on the house and then we went home and he had a Baskin Robbins ice cream cake!

The Results Are In

Email from my doctor today:



Hi Shauna. I am out of the clinic tomorrow, and so will e-mail you the results here, so you are not waiting until Wednesday when I return.Overall the results are stable. There was a little more fluid in the abdomen then on the last scan, next to the mass in the omental area that we have been following. The mass itself however has not grown, which is good news. The thickening of the bladder wall was improved, which is also good news.I think that the combination of the increase in fluid, along with the slight rise in the CA 125 as we had discussed, is enough change however to warrant a switch in the chemotherapy approach, as we had previously discussed.I would recommend a switch back to the FOLFOX/avastin, as we had discussed. Please let me know how you feel about this; if it is okay for us to plan for this, or if you want to discuss further. I will be working at the Sunnyside Hospital next week and so it looks like you will see one of my partners next week.There was also noted that you have a lot of stool in the colon ,and so constipation may be contributing to some of your symptoms as well. I will ask the nurses to call and talk to you about this to advise you on some things that may help.JL




The nurses called me this morning to advise me on starting a serious bowel program to deal with the constipation. The meds and chemo contribute to that, but they are also concerned that I may have a bowel obstruction or blockage. So I need to really focus on this and try to resolve it in the next few days. Overall, the findings are much better than I had anticipated, so I'm glad to hear that. I'm a little concerned about the bowel situation but will hope that it's just constipation and can be resolved. I know this is all TMI (too much info) but this is a serious problem that I know a lot of the ladies in my support group fighting cancer experience. It's one of their main complaints. The pain meds and chemo really mess up your pipes! I've also put a lot of weight on lately due to the chemo and steroids, fluid and probably the constipation issue. The fluid and weight issue plus the constipation have really made me feel "full" and my lungs seem crowded so I get out of breath easily. All of that was really making me worry. So here's hoping my bowel program of stool softeners and laxatives and avoiding dairy, bananas, white rice and applesauce will help to regulate me!! (how embarrassing is sharing all of this???)

Thanks for reading this far and for supporting me!

xoxox
shauna