“Are you alright?” “Brilliant"

       So, here in England, when you greet someone in passing, instead of saying “how are you, or how ya doing?, you are greeted with “Are you alright?” It’s actually kindof hard to get used to because it always makes me wonder if I’ve tripped or if I look real sick and someone is asking me if I’m okay. Now, I’m getting used to it because I find that most British people I’ve met are extremely friendly (unless I do something wrong while driving, which you know how that is).  Another thing is the word “brilliant”. In the states, if we were to describe something as brilliant if would be that we read about a 3 month old reading or playing the piano, or that we saw an amazing piece of art unlike no other. That is something that we would describe as brilliant. Here, I can say, “Oh, I’m going to go in the kitchen and make a turkey sandwich”, the response would be “oh, brilliant”. It’s used for everything….good ideas, nice weather, actions that you do, or it can be used sarcastically, which is my favorite British humor (or humour, as it’s spelled here).

            So, some of the things we had planned for our summer and Josh’s three week break were sidelined by stupid cancer, but we tried like hell to make the most of it. We ended up not being able to go to Scotland, which was a total bummer, but we did go to a place called Blackpool. We thought it would be a nice little quaint beachy village, but our neighbors set us straight before we left which was very helpful. Imagine Myrtle Beach, Vegas, Jersey Shore, Atlantic City all rolled into one place…with lots and lots of pigeons. It was a “beach” with lots of piers with amusement parks on them…so crazy to us Topsail Beach people. We did manage to have a blast and see some really cool things. We went to an amazing circus in a small very old venue. I told the girls that a long time ago, it was a big deal to go out to something like that and you had to be rather well-to-do.  It was small and beautiful with velvet on the walls and nice carvings. The circus itself was just full of amazing acts which was a lot of fun.

 We had good food and lots of great people watching. At one point, Abbey said, “Mommy, I see more people with Mohawks than families”.  That might give you a little bit of an idea right there!

            So, school started on September 2, but only for Leah. Without going into too much detail, there was no room at any school around for Madeline and Abbeys age, so we were waiting to go to an appeal on the Thursday after school started. Anyway, my brave, introverted Leah started as the only American at a British school. It was great. She loved It, people were so kind and helpful to her. That same day, the headmaster said that a family with children in the same grade as Abbey and Madeline moved away this summer and they were pleased to offer them a spot! What a God thing! They started the very next day and were all adorable in their school uniform and they looked so smart. I never get tired of looking at them in that outfit. Genny started on September 8 at a private school nearby and it’s so amazing, it reminds me of a college setting. It makes me tired hearing about her day, its so busy and full of things to do and learn. They are slowly adjusting, I know it will take some time, but it really is a great experience for them and they are already talking about friends and having fun, so that makes me happy. It’s the first time I’ve had all 4 kids at school all day and not gone to work myself!! What am I to do with all my time!???

     SO, the girls are settled, Josh is good in his work. His hours are not like Ft. Bragg time, which is great. He’s here most mornings and home for dinner most nights. He’s even playing rugby with a group from work. He’s liking his job a lot, and that makes us all happy!

            When I talk about how I’m doing these days, I will more than likely say that everything is okay. That is how it mostly is. The way that Josh, the girls and I live is what we call L³ (or L cube, or L cubing, however it goes). It stands for Live, Love and Laugh. As cheesy as that sounds, it’s really what we do. We have a lot to live for, we LOVE to laugh and we certainly have an abundance of love in our home and in our life. It started out when Josh asked me a long time ago what I wanted to do one weekend and I just said “Just a little living, loving and laughing”. Well that just became our thing.

   When I first got diagnosed, there was massive fear for Josh and me. This wasn’t expected and it was so scary. For me personally, it was because I wasn’t used to thinking about what would happen if I died. It was always a worry about Josh leaving us. He had the scary job, he had the things that put him in harms way. I was “prepared” (yea right) if it happened to him…not me. It was a scary time for us for about 2 weeks. Waiting for test results, waiting for prognosis, waiting, wondering, not doing a lot of L³ing, that is for sure. BUT, just like everything, time gets you through it. My doc is hopeful. The medicine he has me on has a success rate of 80% and people have been living on it with much worse diagnosis than me for 5+ years. That gives someone who is BRILLIANT time to come out with something new. I have also, due to some great suggestions from loved ones, RADICALLY changed my diet. No sugar, no refined sugar, free range chick and beef and limited amounts of diary (I love cheese so much). Trying to do organic everything, lots of fruits and veggies and lots of natural food from the earth. Not so hard after awhile. I went through a major detox time with a headache and upset stomach, but now it's all good. I just thought that I wouldn’t feed the cancer what it loves, which is crap that I tended to put in my body. I love McDonalds and coke, but cancer loves it too. So, that is all gone. My attitude has always been positive and I have plenty of reason to live. So I’m going at this guns blazing. And, as usual, Josh is 100% on board. So are the girls. We are a great team and it works for us.

            Just a quick recap on what is going on treatment wise to catch you up. Mom arrived on August 20^th much to our delight and has been a huge help. Getting the girls to and from school, she’s a master at keeping up with the laundry and dishes and has helped unpack 40 million boxes when our furniture FINALLY GOT DELIVERED ON THURSDAY!!!! She is staying until Sept 30 and then we do the mom switch out and get Meg (Josh’s mom) on that same day. We are so lucky to have so much help and love and support!! Then, my sis in law, Che, comes for 18 days in November! I have chemo every three weeks on a Monday. Today was round 2. I have three different things given to me those days, so it makes for a long day. One is actual chemo designed to shrink and kill the cancer (pray that is what it’s doing, if you want to pray for something specifically). The other two are part of a study that is antibodies that help keep you healthy and prolong your life. They are herceptin because my cancer is HER2 positive. That’s a good thing, there are more treatment options for HER2 + people. I think that means that it’s fed on protein, but everything gets mixed up in my brain, I know that I should know this and I will get refreshed on it, but for right now, I know it’s a good thing. I also receive another antibody medicine that helps prolong my life, as well. It’s called pertusamab (I know that’s not spelled correctly, but you would never know that either unless you were a smarty pants or a doctor).  These are good things. The actually chemo is what makes my hair fallout and all those other things, but that ends December 4^th!  I will continue the other things for as long as they are working. I also receive a shot in my stomach every 4 weeks that is a bone-strengthening drug called Dosamab (again, the spelling). That has no real side effects and it super easy to get and tolerate. So, for right now, as of the 1^st round of chemo, it made me pretty sick about 3 days after…nauseous like crazy and a very bad upset stomach. I was very tired and good for nothing for about 5 days. But, I felt so wonderful after that…nothing like a little dose of perspective!! The doc has upped my anti sickness meds this time, so hopefully that will minimize the side effects. I absolutely HATE feeling crummy and I’m sort of a baby about it. But, once I felt better, I was happy to be back in the land of the living. My hair started falling out last week, so we decided to cut it and shave it as a family. The girls cut it and Josh shaved it. I never really care much about my hair because I always wear it in a ponytail, so that wasn’t such a big deal.

  That is really all to report as of now. Things will just keep on keeping on. I don’t have any fear anymore, just hope. There is a great book by Anne Lamont called “Help, Thanks, Wow”. It’s really about the 3 best ways to pray. Get your help request out of the way; it’s good to ask God for what you need. Then, it’s really necessary to thank Him for what he has blessed you with and that gives way for you to notice and pray for all the WOWS in your life. And believe me, NO MATTER WHAT; there are always wows around. That is what we love. They are everywhere. That really takes away the fear if you think about it. I just really feel hope and encouragement and love, love, love.

    I will have another PET scan after the 3^rd round of chemo to see if it’s doing what it’s supposed to do. Pray for that, I need it to shrink all this mess inside me, so that what I’m doing works too!  So, pray, chant, meditate, send up whatever it is you do. I know that works and your love and support is so amazing, I can truly feel it from across the globe. Until we know something different, we will continue to L³!! 

Would you like a hot drink?

 I swear, you can’t go anywhere without getting asked that question. The doctors office, the grocery store, church, anywhere. They are big on tea, obviously, everyone knows that. What I have never taken the time to know is why? I guess I should google it. In the mean time, we sure have embraced it! Everyone loves it in our family, except Madeline, and she just drinks water or OJ out of her tea cup. We put the kettle on after dinner and have a a nice cup of tea with biscuits for dessert. We are becoming so British!!

Tea Time after dinner!!

 Josh has had the last 3 weeks off. We have never had that much time to just hang out. We’ve had a good time, just exploring around the area, going on hikes, making some fun day trips. 

 We still don’t have any of our stuff, that is just a snafu in the moving company. Can’t figure out why. Our express shipment that was supposed to arrive about 2 weeks after we did, is still in Germany. Hopefully that will get here this week sometime. That has towels, sheets, dishes, bikes, some toys for the kids, and some more clothes. We are still living with what we flew over here with, plus some towels that I mailed ahead of time. We went out and bought 6 plates,  2 wine glasses and 2 beer glasses (very important) and 6 coffee/tea mugs. Oh, and some silverware. Other that than, we have loaner beds, a loaner table and loaner sofa from the airforce base. Thank goodness. We hope to get our household goods by September 21. They came to pack it up in NC on June 11! That’s the longest we’ve gone without our stuff! It will be like Christmas when it all gets here! We love this house so much and can’t wait to put our stuff in it to make it feel more like home.

  A little piece of news I want to share with you about what else has been going on. After arriving here, I couldn’t shake a cough I had had since April and also some back pain. I finally decided to go to the doctor in hopes to get some good cough syrup and some muscle relaxers!! The doc sent me to get a CT scan of my chest to make sure my lungs were clear. Unfortunately, it showed that my breast cancer has returned and spread to my bones, a few lymph nodes and 2 very small spots on my liver. What a kick in the pants that news was. I don’t mean to make light of it, it’s super scary, but it’s still rather a shock to us.

 Needless to say, we’ve had a tough couple of weeks. Doing tests, figuring out what we are going to do, making arrangements, talking, telling our family. All really hard stuff. 

 I will say that the doctor I have is AMAZING!!!!! The care here is AMAZING!!!! My doctor feels very hopeful for me, even though this is Stage 4 and not curable.  My previous breast cancer was something called HER2 postive (I think that means it was fed by protein)- anyway, it opened up extra treatment options for me the first go round. This time, there has been so many advances in treatment options for that type as well. There have been some trial studies with women who have had it “worse” than me, but have still been going strong for 5+ years. That was so encouraging, because when you look this stuff up on the internet, it really sucks. 

 I will start treatment on August 24 and continue for 6 rounds every 3 weeks. I will take a round of chemo, as well as two trial drugs that have helped work in shrinking the cancer and help eliviate the pain. That is the worse part about all this right now, I’m in quite a bit of pain and I’m not used to that. I don’t like to be slowed down. I think this medicine will help. 

 We have decided to stay here while during the treatment, until we are told otherwise. The doc said that after a few treatments, I can have another PET scan and see it the treatment is working*******PLEASE PRAY FOR THAT SPECIFICALLY IF YOU PRAY*******. If it’s not working, we will have a plan B. Don’t know what that will be yet, because we are thinking positive. My mother is coming out this Thursday and staying for a month to help out and then Josh’s mother will be here for a month to help. We are starting to meet some friends and the US community is pretty amazing here. I know that we won’t go without help if we need it. The hospital is 0.5 miles from my house, so I will even be able to walk to and from treatments.  Everyone is so nice and helpful and sweet and as always, offering a hot drink!

 This news really threw us for a loop..not expected at all. I was just shy of being 5 years clean. BUT, for the sake of our girls and for ourselves, we are continuing to live our life. We laugh, we go places, we are just normal with a side of suckyness.  I would ask for you to pray if that is what you do for my girls and for Josh as well. This is hard. The girls hardly remember the first time I went through this, so this time might be a little harder. Madeline is very concerned about my hair falling out..she isn’t sure what that will be like. The big girls just don’t want me to have to go through it again. Josh is having to adjust to watching me move slower due to pain and just have this worry about me. Just pray that this treatment shrinks the cancer, buys me some time and another method of treatment will come out and that will be a cure!!

  If you are interested in the trial study, it’s called the Cleapatra study...I think you can nose around google for that.  

 I will continue to update my blog about exciting things we are doing here, it won’t all be about cancer, because I’m not letting that rule us. BUT, I will update you on my progress.

 I appreciate you love and support and prayers. I feel them all the way across the pond!! 

 Cheers!

 Shannon

To Drive or not to drive...I think I’ll walk!

 So, lets talk about driving. We all take for granted that we know how to do it. We’ve been doing it since we were 15 years old (some of you for longer). We know how to operate the car, how to drive down the street, how to navigate traffic and traffic lights, etc. Well, come to England and just throw all that out the window!!!!
  We were here for a few days and knew that we needed a car. We got a rental car for a few days until we could decide what we wanted to do. We shipped our mini-van from the States, but that won’t get here until mid-August. So, we illegally pile four girls in the back of a small 4 door Peagut (I know that’s not spelled right) and go around town.
 Josh is very confident in his driving over here, because he’s done it during some of his travels in the past. Plus, he’s just confident about everything! Me, not so much. I was a terrible passenger.. I just knew that we were going to drive all up on the sidewalk or sideswipe the cars on the left. Sitting in the left side passenger seat is just not a good thing..you feel like you should be driving on that side, and you feel like the car is going to take out a rearview mirrow on a parked car. I say that to preface Josh being a passenger for my first driving experience.
      I knew I needed to do it, but I was so nervous, my stomach hurt. I started by telling Josh to please not raise his voice at me, it would make me even more nervous. Just calmly tell me what to do. So, we get started and come to my first round-about...there are about 1 every 1/2 mile over here, I swear. You have to yield to who is coming to you on your right and you have the right of the way of the people coming to your left. Just doesn’t feel natural. So, I”m driving a long with my hands grasped very tightly to the wheel. Oh, did I mention that it’s a standard transmission, so the gear stick is on the left. Haven’t driven one of those since Genny was a baby, so I’m navigating a left handed gear stick, round-abouts everywhere and driving on the left side of the road, but on the right side of the car. MIND BLOWN.
        Josh, bless his heart, is trying to be calm. Ever so often, he shouts “get over”...”move over”....”wait your turn”... and finally “IS THERE A REASON YOU ARE SO CLOSE TO THIS CURB???????”  I was a nervous wreck by the time we got home. But, I tried again, and I”m slowly but surely getting better. I’m fine on the gear shift (it actually is nice because I’m left handed), and I’m pretty good on the round-abouts, but what drives me insane is that people PARK ON THE SIDE OF A TWO LANE ROAD like it’s a freakin parking lot (or car park, as they say over here). For instance, if you live in Greensboro and you are driving down Cornwallis (which is a busy two lane road) and you decide you want to stop at a house on that street, you just pull over and park. So, now people traveling in that lane have to go into the oncoming lane of traffic to pass your parked car or pull behind you and wait for oncoming traffic to pass. It’s everywhere here...and some people don’t wait their turns...and roads are narrow. It makes me hold my breath and squeeze the streering wheel. If I ever get an audience with the queen while I”m here, I will beg her to outlaw parking wherever you want!!
  So, we decide to buy a British car for me to drive around town. Josh can drive the minivan to work. It will be easier for me to navigate the narrow roads with cars parked all over them with a smaller car. We knew our budget and kindof what we wanted. We go to a small, family owned used car dealership that came highly recommended by other US people here. You get good cars, good service and they will buy your car back when you leave. So, off we go. We walk in the lobby, and there are 3 young boys that look like they belong in a boy band (so does every teenager or 20 something boy over here) and they are the owner’s sons. One of them takes us out to the lot, shows us some cars in our price range. We see one, test drive it, decide we like it. We go back inside to tell Boy Band that we will take it. They have already decided to pay the first years tax on it, so that cuts the price down some-we didn’t even have to negotiate with them, they just did that on their own.  We hand them our sky miles credit card (the Boy Band #1 says that credit card companies usually charge them 2%, but that’s okay, Josh could go buy a round of beers at their fathers bachelor party he was getting ready to have...seriously, not kidding..that is what he said). So, he charges our credit card, and out we go with a car....45 minutes have passed since we pulled in the lot. Have you ever in your American life bought a car that fast? Never...ever. It took us about 8 hours to buy our van. Anyway, it’s a 4 door hatchback Ford Fiesta and I love it! After driving a mini van for 13 years, I love driving around in the little car! It’s great. I’m figuring out how to handle all the parked cars and how to navigate around them.
 When you are a teenager and learning to drive over here, I’ve noticed that you have a magnet sticker on your car with the letter L on it..I’m guessing for “learner”. Leah says the other day, “Mommy, you should have one of those on your car so people will know you are new to driving over here”. Josh just chuckles and says, “Oh, I think they already know that”. Ha Ha

My 2007 Ford Fiesta!!!

Josh took this picture to show the scale of how small the car is! It actually looks like a mini version of our van that’s coming soon! They will look so precious parked next to each other!!

So, we are finally here...it actually did happen!!!

What a whirlwind it has been since we left NC!!!
End of June:
-got all our passports...sent away for 5 Visas (Josh didn’t need one)..that wasn’t an easy process
-had 3 different shipments to take our things away: 1 to storage, 1 big household goods that will arrive in late August, and 1 express shipment that will come in July
-slept on the floor while we waited for the last day of school
-cried a lot while telling friends goodbye
-went to beach for 2 beautiful long weeks
-returned to Sanford to finish cleaning house...
-recieved VISAS!!! Yay!
-went to Charlotte

After we left Charlotte and had said all of our goodbyes from Greensboro, the beach and Charlotte, we started what the girls referred to as “our phases”.
Phase 1: head to Raleigh to spend the night and get ready to take Annie to the airport. The girls were thrilled with the hotel room. They really are very easy when it comes to that! We swam and then walked to dinner. Very nice night. Got up the next morning to take Annie to RDU. That didn’t go as planned. Bottom line is that her kennel was too small according to their standards, so we had to call all over the Raliegh Durham area to find one. Finally after about 10 stores, we found the last one in Durahm. We got it, made her another flight for the next day, found someone who would kennel her for the night and then take her to the airport the next day. I wish it was as easy as I just typed it, but it wasn’t. It took about 5 heart atttacks and 6 hours to figure out all that. Then we headed to Charleston for Phase 2!!
Phase 2: sleep in a beautiful Charleston hotel room and head to the airport the next day!! Josh got up and took the car to the port to have it shipped over here and then came back for us. We loaded all 12 suitcases in a shuttle and headed to the airport. The girls were excited by nervous. The plane was small, but it was on-time. We took off with a few tears and hand holding, but it was a quick flight. Once we landed in Dulles, the girls were playing cards and laughing and ready for the next flight.
Phase 3: big airplane to London! The girls were so excited because of the movie choices. Madeline watched at least 6 movies on the flight..the first 20 minutes of them. We slept a little, but not great, so when we landed in London at 6:30 am, we were going on fumes!
 We went through customs and got all our luggage and found a place to wait for our ride and to go collect Annie.

That part didn’t go so well. First, it was the hottest day in the world there, and no one has AC. We waited at the animal pick up stop for 4 hours in the hot van. Genny slept, I tried, the rest of us just paced around. At that end of that time, we found out that she had arrived 10 hours past the quarantined time of a tape worm test, so she was going to need one and stay for 24 hours.
 So, we headed to Cheltenham. Our wonderful sponsers had set up a 2 bedroom furnished apartment for us to stay in! It was so beautiful and nice to sleep in a bed.
 We spent the next few days just sleeping and wondering around. It took awhile to get our body clocks right.
 One thing I know is that Cheltenham is so beautiful and I can’t wait to find my way around here!!

 Josh made the girls suitcase beds once we landed in London while we were waiting for our ride!

 Long line waiting to go through customs. We were very foggy eyed that morning!

 Genny found a way to sleep in the hot hot hot van!! Lucky girl

Girls getting on the first plane! They were so nervous!!

Will we ever get there?

 I thought about starting this blog to keep track of everything that is happening to get us to England and the exciting stuff we get to do, once we ever get there. I wanted to be able to share our adventures with our family and friends.
  We are currently in the waiting game, but we are still able to accomplish things while we wait.
 Good news:
 1.We have found an amazing house to rent in Cheltenham, UK
 2.We have found amazing renters for our house in Sanford, NC
 3.We have booked transportation to come get our things on June 8-10

Now, we wait for our medical paperwork, which allows for us to get added to Josh’s orders. When we get added to the orders, we can apply for our visas, then get airline tickets!

Things we have found out:
1. We can ship our van from Charleston, SC and fly out of there (these plans are pending our amended orders)
2. We can’t send Annie from Charleston, so we will probably have to put her on a plane in Raleigh, NC. We will meet up with her in London...she will be crazy(er) by then!
3. Our sponser family arrives in London with a 15 passenger van and driver to pick us (plus crazy dog) up and take us to Cheltenham, which they have already arranged a temporary apartment for us when we get there. (What would we do without kind, awesome people)

Now that I am done with work, I plan on the next two weeks, purging everything that we haven’t used in the three years that we have lived here. That is always so fun to do before moving. Very theraputic! Our sponser family told me yesterday that I could send things ahead to them so we wouldn’t have to pack them all in our suitcases; like rain boots, jeans, sweatshirts, jackets, etc. It will probably be about 65-70 degrees once we get there and it rains a bunch, so those things have to go with us. However, we will probably be in NC for the rest of June, which is usually about 90+, so those things aren’t needed here. Sending those bulky things will be helpful in the suitcase packing dilema!

Basically, things are happening everyday. There was a brief time where I didn’t think I would be able to turn my head because of all the stress built up in my neck, but that is getting better, and now things are really getting exciting! I hope this blog gets way more interesting as time goes on...looking forward to sharing in our new life with you all.
 I am adding a picture of our new house in Cheltenham, UK. Bottom line is we completely lucked up in finding this house and we are over the moon happy about this “Nanny McPhee” house!