This photo doesn't begin to tell the story of the support and love we felt while watching Shannon and her Rebels play their way to a thrilling tournament victory. So many family and friends from the Twin Cities and Rochester showed up that we filled the stands. Some even took a break from hockey and braved the snowy conditions to drive to Lakeville and watch Erin play basketball. And Shannon's teammates and their families were right in the thick of it, pulling so hard for all of us. They love our kid and we love them for it. We laughed and cried and cheered our way through two overtime victories. It felt like this was supposed to happen because one of the things on Shannon's bucket list was to win a championship.
But the cold, hard reality of last Tuesday's news was never far from the surface. And by the time we returned home, Shannon was sullen and worrying about her mortality. She said she thinks the tumor is growing. She struggled in the championship game with fatigue and balance. She worries that she will never be able to have that experience again. "It's too bad my first championship came at the end of my life" she told me through her tears.
So today we start trying to buy more time. We broached the subject of clinical trials with Shannon last night. We are headed to Mayo today to sign a release forms for Shannon's records and discuss with doctors what options we might have. St. Jude's in Memphis or National Institute of Health in Bethesda have trials going on right now. We have to continue to fight, so we will...
