'You're always stronger than you think you are': How two local women kept their families moving forward through difficult times

It starts with a sense of shock.

When your child gets a bad diagnosis or injury, as did Rachelle Weber's oldest son Nolan, the world stops on a dime.

"It's like, 'Did I really just hear that?'" she says "Is this going to affect the rest of our lives? It's shock and denial."

For Megan Jensen, whose daughter Abigail was diagnosed with cancer in 2010, it was the same. When Abby started walking funny, Megan and her husband, Jon, thought she had eye problems. They took their 4-year-old to the optometrist, only to be referred to another doctor, whose CT scan revealed an unknown mass in their daughter's brain.

"I just put my face in my mom's chest and cried," Megan says. Jon did the same in Abby's lap.

"Then, after the first few minutes, we pulled ourselves together and said, 'OK. Let's fight. Let's go,'" she says.

Abigail Jensen, 5, plays with her grandfather Arnold Jensen in January 2011 at her family's Oak Ridge home.Southeast Missourian file photo

Rachelle did the same.

"There's a sense of urgency that's multiplied because they're your child," she says. "And that first step depends on who you're dealing with at the time, if it's a doctor or emergency room attendant or even just a spouse."

For her, it was going to St. Louis after Nolan had an unexpected seizure. For Megan it was similar -- heading to St. Louis for a diagnosis.

Both women had other children at home, too. Megan was 10 weeks pregnant, and she says the most important thing for siblings is to make sure they know and feel they're not forgotten.

Participants take off from the starting line Sept. 13, 2014, during the first Nolan Weber Believers 5k and Fun Run in Jackson. (Southeast Missourian file photo)

"I can remember at the hospital being in an elevator," she says. "And overhearing two parents talking. We could tell from the way they were talking they'd been in the cancer world for a while. But we were new. One said to the other, 'It's OK to spoil your sick child. As long as you spoil their siblings, too.'"

It stuck with Megan. It became her philosophy. Since the diagnosis, they saw every day with Abby as the precious gift it was. And so was every day with her other daughters, Mary-Beth and Emily and eventually Sara, too.

Rachelle says it's crucial to find time to spend with the other siblings. And if there's no time, make time.

Abby Jensen (submitted)

Megan says that once, she surprised her oldest daughter by picking up her from school and taking her to the movies.

"We saw 'Ramona and Beezus,'" she says. "We were the only two in the theater. We had a popcorn fight and just enjoyed one another."

She says she wanted Abby's siblings to look back and think about the good times they had with their sister, not just being in a hospital.

And the situation's weight is something spouses have to share, Rachelle says. She, for example, is a natural planner. She poured herself into settling the logistical bramble of treatments and checkups. Her husband Dean, stronger in faith, became the family's emotional anchor.

Nolan Weber's senior photo (submitted)

"We complemented each other well," she says. "It's very difficult to do that as one person."

For the Jensens, the key was total openness.

"Nothing was off the table," Megan says.

The Weber family at the Cure for Cape Cancer Gala in August 2013. (submitted photo)

She knew a couple in St. Louis, she says, who had done the opposite, and it didn't end well. After sending their daughter back for a radiation treatment, the husband broke down in tears. The wife told him to suck it up. That he was being a pansy.

"So from then on, he held it all in," Megan says. "Gave himself a heart attack."

Not communicating will only compound the problem, she says.

"You're two different books on two different pages," she says. "But you have to figure out how to be on the same chapter."

Nolan Weber and Abigail Jensen passed away. Unfortunately, inevitably, the same will happen to other families in the future. But not all. So the most important thing, Rachelle says, is to keep going. Megan says the same.

"People say, 'Oh, I could never handle something like that,'" she says. "But they're wrong. You're always stronger than you think you are."