TO THE TOP

This afternoon the University Of North Carolina Children's Hospital pediatric transplant coordinator Becky called to tell us that with Shantel's numbers she has been moved to the #1 spot on the transplant list. Please continue to keep us in your prayers as this is all very exciting but also stressful.
For those of you that know me know I'm not big on "unknowns". I like consistency and knowing what's going to happen. With all that has happened with Shantel and my Mom I'm pretty sure I better learn what God is trying to teach me!!

WHAT LOVE LOOKS LIKE

valentines day at cheesecake factory

BIRTHDAY PRESENT

One of Mom's Birthday presents was a two night stay at Myrtle Beach on their way to Florida. Their hotel was right on the beach and the view was awesome!! Mom and Dad had a great time walking on the pier, eating seafood, strolling on the beach and enjoying the view. It's always a good time when you can go to a tourist destination without the tourist!!!


enjoying the fresh seafood


AWESOME view from their hotel balcony

LISTED

Today we got the call from UNC that Shantel has been listed to receive a double lung transplant. Now we begin the waiting, the anticipation of "the call." After two years of talking about the fact that someday she would need a transplant, reality is here. All very exciting and very scary! It's a huge surgery, a long rehab and lots of variables. Keep us in your prayers as we start yet another "first" in our lives.

SWEET VALENTINE GIRL

We have become very creative when it comes to celebrating special occasions at Duke. So for Valentine's Day we decided to do a little lunch for Shantel and her friends (also Duke patients) Chelsea and Chris. Happily Chris was able to go home. Neither of the girls had any idea what we were doing. We just told them to not eat lunch and have whatever treatments, etc. done by 1:00. Now Shantel and Chelsea are not allowed to be very close to each other so it was a bit tricky to come up with how we could do lunch without them in the same room. Just so happens Shantel's room is across from the nurses station so we set Chelsea (in the blue shirt) up there and moved Shantel's table to her doorway and that way they could talk to each other but not be that close together. The tables were decorated with a red table cloth, a red rose, heart plates and napkins and gifts. The menu was wings from East Coast Wings. The girls were so excited and had a great time! I want to say thank you to the staff on 5300 for always going along with our wild and often times crazy ideas we come up with to keep life in the hospital as normal and fun as we can.

Our sweet little Valentine Shantel


Shantel's friend Chelsea

ONE HOT MAMA

Mom had a wonderful and busy birthday weekend. Nathan's little girl Rachael's birthday is the day after Mom's so there was plenty of "partying" going on! I fixed a shrimp dinner the day of her birthday and then there was a party at Nathan and Heather's and then a lunch at Olive Garden with Mom's sister and niece's. Great fun all weekend!
Doesn't she look beautiful!!!

Almost a Week

We almost made it a full week out of the hospital! Shantel is really having a hard time. When she walks, moves or coughs she struggles to breathe. She was readmitted today. Please pray the insurance will hurry up and sign the form needed for her to get on the transplant list. That's all we are waiting for now. On a positive note her two little hospital friends, Chris and Chelsea are also in the hospital so she'll have someone to talk with. She can got to the playroom and do things like karaoke with Chris. With Chelsea she has to sit in a chair outside Chelsea's door to talk to her. Even with the restrictions and being gowned, gloved and masked they all have fun!

Happy Birthday.......

TO THE BEST MOM EVER!!!!!

WE LOVE YOU VERY MUCH!!!!

Answer to Prayer #1

Today we spent an entire day at Duke clinics for Mom's first follow up visit since completing radiation and round one chemo. Of course we were all a little nervous. The day started with an 8:15 blood draw and then it was off to a CT scan followed by lunch then a visit with the oncologist and radiologist.
Dr. Hope Uronis is Mom's Oncologist. We saw her first. She started to give some basic information but Dad stopped her and asked for the bottom line results. She laughed and said most of her patients say the same thing when she tries to do dialog first. So bottom line......Mom's cancer hasn't spread, moved or grown. Her cancer makers went from 60 to 11 which is fantastic. They couldn't see on the CT scan the spot that was outside the gall bladder originally which is great news!
Dr. Czito is Mom's radiologist. We saw him next. He mostly said the same as Dr. Uronis but he added something rather interesting. He said it's hard to tell at this point just how viable the tumor is.......what that means is it could be dying, it could just be there.......they just don't know because it's still early.
They both were exceptionally pleased with the results and how well Mom responded and is doing. Tomorrow Mom has an appointment with the surgeon to see if there is any possibility of getting that gall bladder out and the drain tube that goes with it. Both Dr's. have said that is extremely unlikely but they are going have the consult to be positive. That's what's so awesome about the Duke Dr's. They cover every avenue thoroughly to make sure they don't miss anything.
Next steps will be made on Friday when Mom sees Dr. Uronis again to discuss the surgeons consult. More than likely it will be a blood test monthly to keep track of the cancer makers and more chemo. Of course that could all change if the surgeon says he can operate!
Thank you all for keeping Mom and our family in prayer. Please continue to pray for us and the Dr's. as they map out next steps. Right now Mom is feeling great and doing fantastic!! We know God is in the healing business. We also know God has a much bigger plan and our little ideas don't hold a candle to it!
I'll keep you posted :)

On the road again

Seems like just yesterday Dad was packing the car for their trip to Florida. Now it's packed again for the trip back to North Carolina. Time flies when you're having fun!!! And they have had a GREAT time in Florida! It was a much needed break from the stress of the past few months and the daily trips to Duke for treatment. But like all fun it has to come to an end and it's back to reality. Monday it's back to Duke for Mom's first follow up visit. The day starts with an 8:15 appointment. It will be a long day with scans, ultrasounds, blood work and meetings with the Dr's. We have been praying that the outcome of her first round of chemo and radiation will bring very positive results. She has been doing awesome and feels great. Nathan and I will be going Monday with her and Dad. As you can guess we are all very nervous so if you can remember to pray for us Monday morning that God will calm those nerves and give us a peace as we get the results and plan the next steps.
Now on a selfish note......I'm glad their coming home!! I've missed them!!!

S & P....

........AND IT'S NOT WALL STREET!!!!

Shantel and Parker.

Parker is my nephew who lives in Ft. Worth, Texas. When my family was all here for Christmas Shantel and Parker formed a little friendship.....which to me was very cool! One of the things I always have worried about it the fact that Shantel has never had any friends that aren't adults. Her entire life has been in and out of the hospital. She rarely has had the opportunity to attend school long enough to form friendships and when she is in the hospital she is on isolation so she's not allowed with other kids.

The night Shantel came home from Duke for Christmas Parker had stayed at the house to meet Shantel and stay with her and Grandma. Kristy and I had gone shopping and Dad and the rest of the boys went to a ball game. When we came home they were upstairs playing a game and talking. After they left for the night Shantel couldn't stop talking about Parker. She kept saying how nice he was and when she was doing her treatments he left the room but kept coming back to check on her and he even brought her a drink. Of course Shantel is a Nintendo nut so that was right up Parker's ally! So when Parker got his Nintendo for Christmas they really had something in common. So the other day Shantel is playing her Mario game and says with a huge sigh, "I need to call Parker." I said "you need to call Parker, why?" ......... "well, he's the only one who can get me unstuck from level six" Who knew!!!!!!

Thanks Parker for being so sweet and so thoughtful!!! Your a special kid!! I'm so proud of you for being so kind and wanting to hang out with Shantel!!

Tea...for two.....plus 90....

..........was the surprise Mom received last week!!! She had been telling me she was going to a Bible study and woman's tea with Julie Witchie and she was a little nervous because she didn't know a lot of the ladies. See, you have to know my Mom. She hates being the center of anything and I think she was more nervous that she hadn't seen a lot of these people since her cancer diagnosis and she didn't want to have people fussing over her. We all encouraged her to go and have a good time......which she always does once she gets out. Plus we knew it would be good for her to be around other people.
Well, to Moms surprise the tea was in her honor! She was very shocked and surprised.....as were all us kids since Dad kept it quiet!!! There were 90 some women there and they had a great time. They presented her a basket full of cards and notes and a couple gifts.
Thank you Ladies at Word Of Life RV Park for making a special day for my Mom!!! You will never fully realize how much it meant to her!!! This has not been an easy time for her but she has totally enjoyed the fellowship these past three weeks being in Florida!
Please continue to pray for her. The future is a little scary for all of us right now but we know God has a great plan!

BACK AT DUKE

Shantel has been admitted again at Duke. We were so happy to have her home for the past seven days!! Her CF is just so advanced at this point that small things like temperature change can make it difficult for her to breath. We pretty much have this going to the hospital routine down pat! Shantel just amazes me. She faces every set back head on and never complains. She's more worried about leaving her dog Molly than she is about herself! I remember when we told her Mom had cancer. She was going through a third round of kidney stones and was in step down. The kid was in unreal amounts of pain and on painkillers but she was more concerned about how Mom was doing. She's just that way......super kind, considerate, always thinking of others and sweet!
We had our first transplant clinic visit yesterday. More to come on that!

LET IT SNOW.....

Snow isn't a common event here so it was pretty exciting to see 4 inches of the white stuff. Shantel was BEGGING to go outside but since it would have put her into broncho spasms that was a no! So the next best thing was to take pictures through the window......not exactly the same but still fun. Molly wasn't sure what to do at first. After she figured out she could eat the snow it was a whole different ballgame! All I can say is thank goodness I live in North Carolina and snow is rare!!!

A Very Merry Shantel Christmas

We had a super fantastic Christmas! Shantel was discharged from Duke on the Monday before Christmas.....something we were very thankful for but wasn't for sure would happen. Although Duke does wonderful things for the kids that have to be there over the holidays it's a whole lot nicer to be home!!! Shantel was so excited to see all the decorations and the presents under the tree. She's so funny. She remembers small things like the Bath and Body peppermint hand soap we used last year and drinking egg nog. Shantel and Deb were able to come over to Nathan's for a few hours on Christmas day. She was very excited to see all my nieces and nephews. Seems they had a little Nintendo DS game playing going on!

Thanks to all our family and friends for making Shantel's Christmas so special! We are so blessed to have this precious little girl in our lives!!!

Shantel with her dog Molly

Christmas day at Nathan's

Her favorite group....Little Big Town

Now I can have my camera back!

Shantel, Angie and Friends

Shantel had a very special Christmas surprise this year. Angie, a good friend and a step down nurse came to Deb and asked if her church group could "adopt" Shantel this year. This group of friends takes 3 or so kids that are hospitalized over the Christmas holidays and brings them gifts.....not just physical presents but the gift of love. We had so much fun meeting new friends and hanging out.
Thanks Angie and friends for taking the time to show God's love and make a little girl feel so special! We love you all!!



Angie's church group with Shantel


Angie's husband with Shantel

Angie and Shantel

very cool gifts!

Home

We are so excited......Shantel gets to come home today! She'll be coming home on IV's and will have a nurse while Deb and I are at work. It's a pretty intense medication and treatment schedule so it forces us to be very organized! Next Friday we have an appointment with the transplant team and it looks like she may be listed at that time. We'll keep you posted.

Florida

Dad and Mom are spending the next couple weeks at Word Of Life Florida. Since Mom has a small break from her treatments it was the perfect time. When they arrived they found fresh fruit, juice, breakfast danish and some other food already in the refrigerator. Thank you to the kind people at the Word Of Life park for being so thoughtful! They are having a wonderful time seeing friends and going to the beach to watch the sunset. Monday they are heading to Disney with Nathan, Heather and the girls.
It's been a long couple months and I'm so thankful Mom is feeling so well that they could do this! As much as I miss them a change of scenery is just what was needed.

We love Sarah

The Saturday before the elections Dad, Mom, Nathan, Heather, Maddy, Rachael, Scott and I had the awesome opportunity to attend a Sarah Palin rally in Raleigh. As you can see Mom and Dad were two of about 10 people that had the privilege after the event of having their picture taken with the Palins.

It was pretty amazing.....here is a lady that might have been the VP of our country and she took the time to talk with Mom and Dad, didn't act rushed and told Mom they would be praying for her. David sent me a photo of Sarah and I had 5 8x10 copies made and she signed all 5! Nathan had his signed picture in their living room and one morning Rachael (who's 3) got up, saw the picture and said "oh, Sarah Payton....she's so pretty!"

Too bad Sarah Payton's not VP!!!!

Christmas......North Carolina style

The Bagg bunch:
left: Scott, Kristy, Parker, Alex, Landry and Luke
In the back: Tim, me, Dad and Mom
Nathan holding Madaline, Heather (expecting#3 in April)
and Rachael(in blue dress)
right: David, Kathy and Elijah, Lauren (in pink), Kelsey
and Ella


The kids in their jammies




Rachael(nathan's) with her tinkerbell pez





2008 was our first family Christmas together in a very long time. Nathan and Heather who live in Winston Salem, NC were gracious enough and offered to host the big event......no small undertaking with 10 adults and 10 kids all 12 and under! They worked very hard getting all decorated inside and out.
Scott, Kristy and their 4 boys were the first to arrive on Sunday from Texas. Since Mom's last chemo and radiation treatment was on Christmas Eve they came to Cary first to hang out with Dad. Mom and me. My cousin Melissa and her husband Glen were leaving for Florida for the holiday so they offered their house to Scott and Kristy for those couple days......thanks Glen and Melissa!!! Scott, Dad and 3 of the boys attended a NC State b-ball game, Kristy and I went shopping, Parker stayed home and hung out with Grandma and Shantel, Kristy, Deb and I helped Mom do some baking and they all went with Mom to Duke for one of her treatments and of course had to tour where the number one college basketball is played.......DUKE!!!!
David, Kathy, their 3 girls and little boy along with my brother Tim dodged a snow storm as they made their way from upstate New York. They arrived Tuesday night.
Christmas Eve we have a family tradition of having a little party. We always have shrimp dip, maggot salad (not as bad as it sounds!), finger sandwiches, meatballs in alfredo sauce, hot cheese dip and chips, fruit with this amazing sauce you put over it that Mom makes, cookies, layered salad and hot cider. This year the kids watched Polar Express and the adults got a couple hours of uninterrupted conversation in........which pretty much was the last!!! After the movie the kids each opened one present which was new PJ's and set out milk and cookies for Santa. Dad read the Christmas story from the Bible and off to bed the kids went. We still had stockings to fill and clean up to do before any adults went to bed!
Christmas morning started with breakfast and then we opened gifts. The kids were so calm I couldn't believe it! We started out by taking turns opening a gift and trying to keep up with the paper and boxes. By the end....well you know....stuff was all over the place! It really was fun to watch the kids. They were having such a good time and they were so good! Christmas dinner was awesome, ham, mashed potatoes, I think 4 veggies, a couple salads, bread and homemade pies. We put Scott and David at the kids table (can you guess why) which was set up in the living room and the rest of us were able to squeeze around the dining room table.
Nathan set up a hayride through the "Festival of Lights". This is a state park that they decorate with Christmas scenes with thousands of lights and and you drive through it or in our case we rode on a hay wagon. It was pretty chilly the night we did this but it was so beautiful.
On Sunday my Mom's sister Linda and her husband and our cousin Renee and her family drove over from Raleigh for the afternoon. There's always a lot of laughing going on when we all get in one room!
Some very special friends of Dad and Mom's gave them a gift of a hotel room. This was so perfect for them! With Mom being at the end of her treatments she was very tired and needed to have the quiet so she could rest and the kids got to go swimming at the pool!!
The rest of our time together was filled with trips to the mall, a visit to the museum, putting a puzzle together, talking, watching football, eating, more talking and just enjoying being together. That's the one thing I miss is not being able to see everyone very often because we live so far away from each other. It was awesome being together even in close quarters.
There is nothing like family!!!!