Pistons Game for Breast Cancer Survivors

Here I am sitting on the Pacer's bench right before all the Pistons ran out of the tunnel and entered the court right next to us.

Me and Rebecca in front of the court waiting to go out there. (in our pink Piston's gear)

Happy Halloween!!! My nephew, Drew, was the cutest little Mickey Mouse EVER.

My other nephew, Miles was the cutest little newborn pumpkin.

And Paige was the cutest white cat. We missed our Neice Lauren in her skunk costume, but she gets to wear it around the house a lot. Wish we could have been in two places at once.

That’s right. Pistons season started and I have already gone to a preseason game, the home opener and game 2. My friend and fellow natural cures buff who I met in the young adult’s support group, Rebecca, nominated me to be one of the nine breast cancer survivors who got to stay in a suite for game one. James Edwards (Buddha, one of the original Bad Boys) came up to the suite to sign autographs, but we weren’t there yet. We did though get to go to center court at halftime and we got a picture with Chauncey. I got to wave up to Kevin Schnieders and his father who were sitting in their season seats so they got to see it all. We walked by the sports writers and I saw Rick Mahorn (who probably also went up and signed autographs with Buddah because he is another notorious ex-Piston bad boy, but all the women up there had no clue who he was so they couldn’t tell me who the other guy who went up there was). He smiled at me and I said hi and he said hi back. We sat on the Pacer’s bench while we waited to get the picture. We were right there when all the Pistons came out. Rebecca and I stayed in the back of the group knowing that the player would be in the back of the picture since they are so tall. And then, I turned around and Chauncey walked right up to me. I said “CHAUNCEY!” and put out my hand and he shook it said hello and smiled. We were supposed to look at the picture, but I was too busy looking at Rip, Sheed, and all the rest of the guys warm up right next to us. I was looking at Afflalo, Amir and then I saw McDyess looking right at me so I said “Hi MyDyess and gave a little wave and he smiled (he has to have the nicest, most kind looking smile I have ever seen) and said hi back. Anyway, as you can see I was in heaven. We tried to get Chauncey to take a picture with me individually, but he said they weren’t supposed to and he had to warm up. He was very nice about it though.

Too fun. This was not on my bucket list, but had I known it could happen, I would have put it up there.

What else was fun was getting to know my friend Rebecca some more. We are fellow metestatic cancer survivors with liver ….we’ll call them polka dots. Polka dots sound about 100 times better than tumors. We both thought the other person had the whole natural cures thing figured out and also thought we both had everything together mentally. I was happy and relieved and so was she that we both have down times. We both have doubt, fear, anger, frustration, feelings of helplessness and on and on. Now I understand how you all see me. I always saw Rebecca as this girl who has it all figured out and has everything together. Things can seem much different from an outsider’s perspective. We both struggle just the same regardless of our outside composure. I’m not sure if anyone has everything all figured out.

Well, I hope you all like the new blog. I’m kind of sad knowing that I will most likely not get as many messages from all of you that I used to on the Caringbridge site. (I only got 1 so far) PLEASE email me if you need help figuring out how to post messages, become a follower or anything else. Also, please email me if you want the email notifications for my posts. Soon, I plan on doing more health lessons very soon. I kind of needed to just take one deep meaningful breath and go PHEW after all that work getting the blog up and going with all the pictures.

So, next Wednesday I am going back to MD Anderson. I guess the study sponsor (this unnamed woman who I am not allowed contact with) said that she WOULD in fact pay the rest of my travel expenses as well as all the past expenses. Still, right now I am out over $4,000 and I haven’t seen a penny yet. This is a little frustrating. Nonetheless, I fly out Wed night, go straight to MD Anderson, get blood work, sleep at Paul’s, go to my appointment in the morning, and then straight to the airport to fly back home on Thursday. I will get the blood test, but no scans. Then, December I have the scans and everything. I plan to go to Austin and visit this trip. I have a MRI scheduled for Tuesday here in Michigan first. We’;; try not to stress out and worry about those results.

You all might be happy to know that I am completely street legal now. I have insurance (in my car), Michigan registration, a Michigan license, and Michigan plates. I will never go through that yellow turning red light ever again. After my Rack Pack meeting this past Tuesday, I saw one cop in that same spot waiting to pull someone over for the same offense. Then, I saw another cop who had pulled over a person right around the corner. Both these cops stake out this spot every Tuesday night apparently. Now I know, and knowing is half the battle.

Okay, that’s all for now. I’ll post again soon.

Goooooooo Pistons!!!
Shannon