By Ray Duckler
The Concord Monitor
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — Sarah Fox, returning from a vacation with her husband and their five children, knew the cars parked near her house Tuesday afternoon meant something special. She just didn’t know what.
It soon became apparent that her friends and co-workers from the Portsmouth Fire Department, all of whom have provided a support system as Fox battles cancer, had built a swing set for her children at their home in Canterbury.
Fox’s husband, Matthew, owns the Olde House Smoke House, walking distance from the family’s log cabin. But Fox knew all those cars lining the dirt road leading to their home didn’t belong to customers.
“We made a joke,” said Sarah, who’s on leave from the Portsmouth Fire Department. “I recognized enough of the cars, so I knew it wasn’t some mad rush at the
smoke house. . . . All these thoughts are quickly going through my head. I figured it was something big because both firefighters and local people were here.”
Fox was featured in the Monitor two months ago. She was diagnosed with breast cancer 2[1/2] years ago, on the same day she gave birth to twins Anika and Alexander. The couple also have a 7-year-old daughter, Patia, while Matthew Fox has two children, 15-year-old Cossondra and Jacob, 12, from a previous marriage.
Fox thought she’d won her fight against cancer and returned to work as a fulltime Portsmouth firefighter in January of 2009. But the cancer reappeared near theof last year in her left hip and spine.
Doctors have said she might have only one year to live, but recent chemotherapy treatments and an experimental drug have shrunk the inflamed lymph nodes in her abdomen and added a bounce to her step.
“They tell me I’m getting more anemic as the weeks go by, which can make you feel more tired because you don’t have red blood cells to circulate your oxygen,” Fox said. “And I guess I trail off at theof my sentences because I run out of air before I run out of thoughts. But I don’t notice it affecting my everyday activities.”
Which gave her the green light to travel south last week, during a break from chemo, with Matthew Foxand all five kids. They visited an aunt in Tennessee and a friend in North Carolina. They also stopped in Hershey, Pa., for a tour of the chocolate factory.
Meanwhile, the firefighters in Portsmouth were plotting their strategy to enrich their friend’s life. They knew Fox had always wanted something better than the four swings that sat in her backyard.
“After she was diagnosed, one of the guys was in Canterbury and noticed it was just a set of swings,” Portsmouth firefighter Russell Osgood said. “She had been looking at all these catalogs that had these kits and great big sets, and I think that’s what she wanted, so I spoke to Matthew and I spoke to her dad.”
Operation swing set moved forward Tuesday of last week, after the family left on their trip. Osgood said the crew worked three or four days gathering material and planning before he went to the house to record measurements.
“Then Friday the crew landed and worked all day Friday,” Osgood said. “Then we delivered the set and worked all day Saturday and worked doubletime Sunday and Monday.”
The set was paid for by firefighters and through donations. It was built from scratch, as opposed to a kit and is actually called a “play system,” according to Osgood. It includes four swings, two towers, monkey bars, a climbing wall, a climbing ramp, two slides and a rope ladder. It stands in front of the house, at the edge of the driveway.
The Fox family returned home Tuesday at 5:25 p.m. About 25 firefighters and 25 neighbors were there waiting. Fox figured out what was happening as Matthew drove the van closer.
The twins, though, had fallen asleep shortly before the trip ended.
“They were obviously overwhelmed a little by the amount of people that were there,” Fox said. “We’re waking them up and they’re at the age of being a little shy, but it didn’t take long for them to figure out that this was going to be a fun thing.”
Copyright 2010 ProQuest Information and Learning
All Rights Reserved
ProQuest SuperText
Copyright 2010 Concord Monitor/Sunday Monitor