When I was 9, my dad was diagnosed with stage 4, Mixed Cell, Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. It was the late nineties and his prognosis wasn’t great, but there was a new drug providers thought would be the answer - Rituxan. TLDR: my dad has been in remission since he completed treatment for his first and only occurrence. I met Shanna when I was pregnant with Everett and she was pregnant with Aurora - Kai and Derek worked at the forest service together and I heard she was also kind of a B. I love a spicy lady. We immediately bonded over our mutual ‘ick’ of touchy feely people and being overly independent. Shanna’s water broke at work, her manager drove her to the hospital, and before the epidural could even take, Aurora was earthside. When we came to visit a couple hours later, Shanna was pooping, because she is a freak of nature whose babies willingly are born without surgical intervention & apparently without constipation 🙄 Everett and Aurora are 2 months apart and at 1 month and 3 months, we let Kai and Derek talk us into camping. It was really stupid and no one slept except Derek and Kai - a common theme. When Shanna found out she was pregnant with her second - Weston, she begged me to get pregnant with her again because it would be “SO FUN!” (misery loves company). I laughed in her face and had a glass of champagne; I was already 8 weeks pregnant. Oop. As the story goes, we took our maternity photos together & Weston and Hailey were born two days apart; Aurora was much more helpful than Everett, who regularly told me my baby was crying. We took them to much better accommodations than camping at less than a month old (we have no idea why we’re like this), to help overcome the camping trauma, obviously. A few weeks ago Shanna was supposed to go to the Philippines, but when she posted a photo from somewhere other than my husband’s birth place, I immediately knew something was off, so I slid my ass into those DMs with 500 questions and demanded to know what was up. She’d had an xray of her chest and they saw a mass. However, the xray captured her boob outline fabulously and honestly, it’s frame worthy. She would then go on to have a biopsy a couple of weeks later, only to learn the mass had grown and she was likely dealing with stage 3 Large B-Cell Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. Fuck, right? But, there was one thing we were not going to do and that was wallow. I strapped on my big girl undies and began firing off words of encouragement - "This is fucking stupid and not at all fair, but you’re a tough ass bitch and we are not ‘light up the room’ girlies; people do not write loving obituaries about bitches like us, so obviously you won’t die, and this will be a super cute story Aurora can tell everyone (including colleges) about overcoming obstacles, just like I did." Inside though, 9 year old me was looking right at Aurora, knowing the journey she’s about to take on is far beyond her years. But, when Shanna kicks this thing, Aurora will be funny as shit and maybe I’ll even buy her her first thong to wear to an infusion appointment, like I did, you know, for the core mems. The reality though, is I’ve never been a Mom without Shanna. I’ve never told anyone how much my husband truly drives me bonkers, other than Shanna. I’ve never shared my truest feelings, no matter how gross and misguided, with anyone but Shanna, because something in our souls just gets each other. Shanna starts treatment Monday, with 5 days of infusions (that she can luckily take home with her) and 16 days between for a total of 18 weeks. At the end, she'll be cancer free, and we'll go to Mexico. Anyway, shits about to get real, but if you know Shanna, you know she’s got this, because she’s a tough ass bitch. Some notes - Shanna will take time from her job as a manager at North Comm Dispatch, providing emergency response to North County San Diego - a job she is extremely passionate about, to receive treatment. Kai is a Federal Firefighter in San Diego, with a schedule that can be less than forgiving. Aside from Shanna likely not wanting to cook, or clean, or do much of anything, Kai isn't very good at those things either, so we'd love to rally the masses for door dash, freezer meals, house cleaning, kid watching, Kai watching, etc.