Sissy Here!

Hi! It's Shanna posting from the SC (Snohomish County, glamorous I know!).

Part I

Well, if you hadn't seen the low for yourself, you would think Sara is a thin, gorgeous, vivacious young woman without a care in the world. This just proves we can never judge another person's life or circumstance by looking at them.

My Sara came to visit and it's the first time I've seen her as I have always known her to be since September 2010. She made our Christmas wonderful and fun but she was feeling so sick then she barely ate any food.

When she came to take care of my 3 girls so Wes and I could go to the hospital and have #4, I was too preoccupied to notice how bad she was feeling. When we came back from the hospital to a nice clean house and happy kids and got to hang out and talk with Sara, I realized how sick she was and we started Googling. Well, we diagnosed her with gallstones. I would love to have been right. When my mom and sister called two days after she left with the news I felt terrible.  She had been doing my laundry and dishes with cancer. Now I knew why she didn't seem herself at all.

So now she is here to visit for a couple days and go to the Dr for Big News. I get my turn rubbing her feet to help with chemo pain in the heels. She has energy to help put kids to bed and hang with them, mostly while sitting down. One more day and then back to chemo so we have to hurry with our acting as if we are normal people having a visit. After being absolutely sick with worry for so many months it's nice to put everything else out of mind.

Part II

So you know about the awesome doctor visit by now. I will finish telling about how Sara, after buzzing around and not having a nap for 2 days, crashed a little the night before her Dr appt. EEEK! We were a little worried but she recovers a little faster now and we made it to the appt the next morning only 2 minutes late.

Well, in the room at the doctor's we were laughing our heads off, then crying, then laughing. Dr. Lin left for a few minutes when there were tears and when he came back we were laughing like hyenas. He is used to Sara's entourage so he just goes with the flow, he said "Now what are you doing?" Have I mentioned how awesome he is? He has a sense of humor but is nice too, and you can tell his brain moves at speeds and levels far above normal people. Also, he did hugs all around after we looked at Sara's awesome scan.

So, we have won a couple of battles and it is time to celebrate. Always in our minds we know that this is a long war against a cancer with no cure (yet!) only long term treatment. So my sister looks beautiful and thin and stylish but she carries a burden so heavy I don't know if I could be so strong were our roles reversed. 

Part III

This experience made me think a lot about caregivers and patients with such serious illnesses. My sister and my family have been extremely lucky to have so many caregivers and of such high quality. My sister would not be so well now without them. There is no way to adequately thank them for all they've done except to follow their example, should the circumstance arise, and hope to do as well for someone else.