They call me...Shadden: 2019

Monday, July 8, 2019

Megan part 1

I forgot I had a blog.

I don't journal anymore like I used to, not even in my personal journals at home.

So much going on in my head that I want to write down, but I don't.

There is something that I would like to document, and that's my sister Megan. My beautiful, loving, generous, fiercely loyal, hilarious, kind sister Megan.

Megan is the second of 8 kids, and the first daughter. She was always the kind big sister. Always helping her younger siblings.

When we were kids Megan was in a beauty pageant. She did some modeling, and lots of singing. An incredible person to look up to. We "played' beauty pageant at our home ALL.THE.TIME. Megan was the judge of our (me, Erin and Caitilin) talents, dress, and walk, and each time chose a new winner so that no one would feel left out. We had this GIANT coffee table that was our "stage" where we performed; alway performing. Megan taught us how to dress, showed us what was in fashion, how to do our hair and makeup. She was the best big sister!

One of my favorite memories of Megan was when she checked me out of high school one day during my junior year, and asked if I wanted to go to lunch..."in Vegas!" She had just started working for a travel agent and she wanted to treat us to an adventure. She and I flew to Vegas, had lunch at a buffet in Circus Circus, walked around a little, took some pics, and then flew back home. It was SO FUN!

Things were harder as we got older. But Megan's love for her siblings never changed. We were always so excited when she'd come back home for a visit from going to school at BYU-H. The first thing us younger sistes would do is raid her suit-cases to see what new clothes she had that we could try on; always so envious! I remember she had the overall shorts that I thought were THE CUTEST EVERRR! I begged her to let me wear them to school one day, and she obliged. She then helped me find some just like hers that I could buy. Oh man, I felt like I was the most stylish person ever with those overall jean shorts.

Megan went through a lot of hard times in her 20's, 30's...and so on. There was a time, a long time, where I was just so mad at her for putting my parents through so much hell. It seemed like it was never ending. But out of those ashes came beauty in the form of 2 nephews I loved dearly, and eventually a niece. Megan loved her kids! My relationship with her seemed better, as did the relationship with my parents. She tried. She really, really tried.

Being a single Mom was hard, but Megan persevered. She graduated from College and eventually became and HR Manager. She was the hardest working person I knew of.

Fast forward years and years later in April of 2017, at age 44, Megan was diagnosed with stage 3 Triple Negative Breast Cancer. Triple-negative breast cancer is cancer that tests negative for estrogen receptors, progesterone receptors, and excess HER2 protein. This means that hormone therapy wouldn't work on her. This was a more rare and more aggresive cancer. She was scared. We were all scared. She went into the doctor because she found a very small lump in her right breast. She initially wasn't concerned, just thought she should have it looked at just in case.

Upon finding out about her cancer I, of course, googled stage 3 triple negative breast cancer. The prognosis wasn't good. I knew at that moment that this cancer would eventually take her, and we all needed to prepare.

Me as a baby, and Megan