Christ Be All Around Me, Including the Bathroom Floor

Short and sweet health update: I had an MRI this past Monday. The tumor is stable, which is the goal, and my next scan is in December.

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I couldn’t have known at the time, but I texted a friend—one who had gone through her own form of a cataclysmic health crisis—the morning of February 7, 2024, at 7:05 a.m., two days after my brain biopsy, and wrote, “Last night wasn’t a great night. I felt like I was on the verge of a seizure all night without actually having one. Around 5:00 a.m., I woke up with this thought, and you came to mind: I think I’m about to fully discover for myself what Nightbirde meant when she said, ‘God is on the bathroom floor.’” 

By that same afternoon, my neuro-oncologist walked into my hospital room and shared—my tumor was, in fact, cancerous. My words had unfortunately been prophetic. There would be no escaping the bathroom floor kind of season on its way.

To fully understand this text, you need to know who Nightbirde was. Her real name was Jane Marczewski, and she first hit the public’s radar when she performed an original song, “It’s OK,” on America’s Got Talent in June 2021. She stunned the judges with her performance—so much so that Simon Cowell reached for the Golden Buzzer and sent gold confetti raining down around her. She had an ethereal, light quality to her voice, and her backstory deepened the gravity of the song: "I was a stick of dynamite and it just was a matter of time."

Her backstory was this: she had cancer in her lungs, spine, and liver, and she was working hard to keep her health on track at the time of the performance. Even with the Golden Buzzer, she had to withdraw from the competition in August because her health had deteriorated so much. She ultimately died months later in February 2022.

I remember watching that performance, similarly stunned by both her beauty and her voice. Like most people, I immediately turned to the internet to find out more about her. One of the first things I discovered was a blog post she had written in March 2021, titled “God is on the Bathroom Floor.” I read it with tears in my eyes as she recounted the toll the cancer was taking on her mind and body. Her writing style was compelling and emotionally gripping. In some ways, I was jealous of how good of a writer she was. I printed off a copy of the post and kept tucked it in the front of my journal for years, just because, as a writer, I wanted to aspire to that kind of storytelling. I certainly didn’t want her story as a way to get there—but as it turns out, I did receive that kind of story. Only it became one all my own.

Thus, the 7:05 a.m. text to my friend, in which I said I felt like I was about to enter my own “bathroom floor” season. For two years now, I’ve mulled over how to write a blog post that somehow matched Jane’s and the imagery she used—proof that, somehow, my story might be worthy. I fabricated an arbitrary benchmark as a writer and storyteller. I wondered if there was a way to put a quippy spin on her title, but everything I thought of sounded lame, like I was trying too hard. 

I was trying to put a square peg in a round hole. 

And that peg just.would.not.go.in.

It finally occurred to me that I could not write what Jane wrote. 

I needed to stop trying to put the square peg in the round hole. That bathroom floor was all hers, not mine. I simply could not fully relate to what she wrote. Did I spend some time on the bathroom floor? You bet I did. Other than a few bits, though, her post holds little reflection of my own experience. There was no spin to be had.

I never called God a cheat or a liar, and I was never bitter.

I was never cynical, angry, hardened, or offended. By the grace of God, those were simply not components or facets of my story.

It’s okay that she felt those things. And that I didn't. Neither story has anything to prove. There is no “God is on the Bathroom Floor” post for me. If anything, it would probably be “God is in the MRI Machine” because that always seemed to be this oddly sweet place that God would send me songs that would speak precisely to something I needed to be encouraged about or reminded of. This latest MRI included Ayanda Khumalo’s song “Psalm 18,” on which I am hooked.

The reality is that Christ is in me—and all around me. The bathroom floor. The MRI tube. The surgical table. The ER. The gym. My house. My parents’ house. My office floor. There is nowhere I go that he is not.

My friend texted later that fateful morning in response, “Dear friend, I have been there; on that bathroom floor with God nearby. You may be getting ready to enter into your bathroom floor season, but what I know and trust is that HE will be with you in every moment.”

Indeed, Christ was—and is—all around me, including the bathroom floor.

"Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

if I settle on the far side of the sea,

even there your hand will guide me,

your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me

and the light become night around me,”

even the darkness will not be dark to you;

the night will shine like the day,

for darkness is as light to you." (Psalm 139:7-12)

2025: This Is My Body Broken For You

I texted a friend recently, explaining that I had contracted shingles, probably because my body is so stressed these days. Once we sorted out her initial inquiries about the situation, she quipped, "You're no longer a forty-one-year-old woman. You are officially sixty-five."

I then asked her if it raised my age even more when I told her that I had recently purchased a bathrobe to wear most of the time because I get so cold—which, being cold isn't technically anything new; it's just the bathrobe.

She responded and jokingly said it reminded her of Cousin Eddie in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

Oh dear. 

(But don't worry, folks, I bear no other resemblance to Cousin Eddie other than wearing a bathrobe, and that includes the fact I'm not standing out on the curb, drinking a beer, smoking a cigar, and emptying the sewage tank of my camper because "the s--- was full." This comparison to Uncle Eddie is highly limited.)

It sure feels like I'm sixty-five these days, though, as my body just can’t seem to figure out how to mind its manners. And when it does, it can't seem to do it for consecutive days. It feels like here in the latter half of 2025, I've had more doctor's appointments post-treatment than I did during the treatment itself. I looked back through my calendar and discovered that I've had at least one doctor's appointment, if not multiple, every week since August 17, minus the week of the national conference for my job and the week of Thanksgiving.

To keep things in perspective for myself, I wrote a quote on my kitchen dry erase board from author and Bible teacher Beth Moore: "It's not that we should be surprised that we get sick, but rather that we spend more than ten consecutive minutes well."

I still get surprised when I get sick, and I get surprised when I'm not well for more than ten consecutive minutes. Yet I shouldn't be, not so long as I walk this planet. The apostle Paul plainly reminds us in 2 Corinthians 5:4, "For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened..." (ESV). While we are in this tent—these bodies—we groan, being burdened by them.

I was so hopeful for treatment to end and to put regular appointments behind me, but alas, that has not happened. Between the ingrown toenail I had removed in September, which didn’t heal properly and caused a cascading effect of muscle issues because I started walking differently to avoid the pain, and an episode of shingles that, thankfully, was very mild, my body just cannot seem to get itself sorted out. Oh, and then I accidentally injured my other big toe toenail, for which I’m now on alert for possibly losing that nail as well. All of this has culminated in me being hyperaware of how hyper-vigilant I am about the slightest symptoms.

"My toe seems redder than normal. Does that mean I have an infection in my bone now?!"

"I slept abnormally long last night and didn’t have much of an appetite when I woke up; something must be wrong!"

"What does that red mosquito-like bump mean? Did some sort of bug bite me in the night?!"

"Why do I feel so crummy? Do I have food poisoning?!"

I could go on and on with examples. All of them irrational, and all of them mentally exhausting. No wonder shingles made a visit. I am stressed about being stressed. I groan and am burdened by this body.

But I suppose a brain tumor that went undetected for years can do that to you, leaving you wondering if the next odd symptom isn’t just an imaginary monster under your bed, but rather one that really is alive and growing. It's been very hard to bring all those thoughts under control because I walk around wondering if there is some other major malady that I'm missing—the next monster coming for me.

Every time I ponder these bodily issues, this physical brokenness, I voice my exasperations to God. I tell him how sick I am of thinking about my body, and then my mind wanders to a picture of Jesus at the Last Supper with his disciples. He offers communion, holding a loaf of bread in his soon-to-be nail-scarred hands, uttering the words, "And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me" (1 Corinthians 11:24, KJV).

This is my body, which is broken for you.

Jesus willingly gave up his heavenly glory and perfection to inhabit this planet in a physical body that was weak, smelly, hungry, thirsty, and bloody. His was a physical body that experienced pain the same way ours does. His body, though, would be nailed to a cross, where his shoulders were likely wrenched out of their sockets, his back shredded to resemble hamburger meat, his head mashed with a crown of thorns on it, and hands and feet hammered repeatedly with what was probably the equivalent of railroad spikes. For Jesus to endure what he did on the cross was no small thing. It was sheer agony. And it resulted in his physical death, though blessedly temporary.

As I ponder my own body and its many moments of illness, I have to ask myself: Am I willing to echo the words Jesus said at the Last Supper in return, offering my brokenness back to God the Father? Am I willing to give thanks for all that I have, broken body and all, and say back to him, This is my body broken for you? Am I willing to give my body back to him as he gave his for me?

I will readily admit that that it’s annoying and frustrating that my body doesn’t function as I wish it would, and I will readily admit that I cannot answer those questions with any form of a resounding yes.

I wish I could do pistol squats again at the gym; right now, it's a little more of a squirt gun squat.

I wish I could swing sixty-pound kettlebells like I used to, even if I know such a movement serves no functional purpose in daily living.

I wish I could lift the laundry detergent up on the shelf with my left arm without wincing in pain. Perhaps my haphazard decision to buy Cheer detergent last time is a subtle nudge from the Holy Spirit.

I wish my left toenail would heal so I didn’t have to prop myself against the wall to put a dumb cast cover on it before I shower to keep moisture and dirty water off it.

I wish I could figure out how to get off the floor without contorting myself into some sort of performer at Cirque du Soleil to avoid banging my toe, making it worse.

I wish I could put my left sock (just my left!) on without needing to practically fold myself in half and hope the sock catches on at least one toe.

I wish I didn’t have to remember to take meds and supplements at 7:00 am, 8:00 am, 11:00 am, 2:00 pm, 8:00 pm, and 9:00 pm. (The one at 7:00 am, 2:00 pm, and 9:00 pm is thankfully short-lived, as it’s for shingles. The one at 11:00 am can’t be within two hours either way of other supplements, and only on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Oh, and the one at 8:00 am and 8:00 pm can swing an hour either way. I need reminders for the reminders.)

I wish, I wish, I wish.

We are all wishing there were something different about our bodies. Perhaps more beautiful, less broken. Perhaps more mindful, less medicated. Perhaps more disciplined, less distracted. Perhaps more perfect, less painful.

We could all probably agree that we would gladly give up the groaning we have over our physical bodies or the bodies of our loved ones.

But would any of us willingly step to the front of the line of dysfunctional bodies and tell God he can do whatever he pleases with our bodies in accordance with his will? Would we volunteer and say, "Take mine. If you wound it, then you wound it. If you maim it, you maim it. If you break it, you break it. Whatever you desire for my body, Lord, do it." Would we be like Job, the ancient sufferer who lost all, including his own health, yet still proclaims, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him" (Job 13:15, KJV)?

Though God slays our bodies—perhaps even unto death itself—will we trust in him?

I haven't been able to answer that question for myself as of yet, at least not in a way that is total surrender to God, as I truly would love to be consistently well and free of ailments and odd symptoms, and of course, cancer-free. Yet this is where we live while on Planet Earth, stuck between the tension of bodies that are imperfect, sick, and maimed, and bodies that will one day be made whole for all eternity. Paul went on to say in 2 Corinthians 5:4, "For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life."

The day will come when our broken bodies will be made whole, and not only will they be well for more than ten consecutive minutes, they will be gloriously well for all eternity. The mortal will be swallowed up in life everlasting and attempting to be a Cirque du Soleil performer just to get socks on and stand upright will be a thing of the past. 

A King and A People of Oxymorons

A year ago tomorrow, I celebrated my fortieth birthday by mourning. I disappeared to a cabin by a lake with a college friend—the kind of friend who will sit with you in the ash heap and not say a word, much like Job's friends did after he suffered one devastating loss after another after another: "Then they sat on the ground with him... No one said a word to him because they saw how great his suffering was" (Job 2:13). There’s a photo of me from that weekend, still nearly bald, my face splotchy from crying, sporting a socially expected smile, holding up a funfetti cupcake on a plate, a single candle staked in the center, the flame alight. I looked and felt like a mess. I don’t know what I expected my fortieth birthday to look like, but it sure wasn’t that.

Oh hey there, cancer. Thanks for ruining the party.
But sadly, I cannot blame you for my poor fashion choices.

I was a sick healthy person. I was in the best shape of my life when I was diagnosed. Pound for pound, I was probably one of the strongest people in the gym. I had no underlying health conditions—or so I and everyone else thought. But my brain tumor had been there all along, as multiple doctors stated it had likely been growing for years, waiting, undetected. I literally had an underlying health condition, just centimeters beneath my skull. I was a mourning rejoicer on my fortieth birthday because I was rejoicing in the fact that I even lived to see the day after some hellacious months leading up to it, but mourning all that those months had cost me mentally, emotionally, and physically.

About a month after my diagnosis, I watched Katherine Wolf speak at IF: Gathering 2024. Katherine's life was upended at twenty-six when she suffered a cataclysmic stroke that left her permanently disabled. At that point in my own journey, I hadn't yet had the craniotomy, which wouldn’t come until another month after IF. As I listened to Katherine speak, I was struck by her use of the phrase “wounded healers." 

I've rolled that phrase around in my heart for over a year now. Being wounded—aching with the hurts of this world—is not what sets Christians apart. All of humanity is bloodied, beaten, and bruised. We are all the walking wounded. However, as Christ-followers we do have a unique calling to be healers, even when we ourselves are wounded, for the Savior we serve is a wounded healer himself. Isaiah 53:4-6 paints this oxymoron of an identity:

Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering; yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.

Christ is not just the King of the Jews (Matthew 27:37), but the King of Oxymorons, for he is both the chief wounded healer and the ultimate living sacrifice. And as image bearers of that same Christ, those identities must be our identities. We, too, are to be wounded healers and living sacrifices, as Romans 12:1 commands us, "Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship."

We, too, are to be people of the oxymoron, a people called to live with incongruent identities. 

We are sinful saints, for we are both sinful and yet saved, destined to join other saints in heaven.

"...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God..." (Romans 3:23), but "For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13).

We are rich beggars, for we are both rich in Christ, heirs to his kingdom, and yet poor in spirit.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:3).

We are hungry feasters, for we are both spiritually hungry and yet we feast at the table of Christ. 

"Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food" (Isaiah 55:1-2).

We are afflicted comforters, for we are both afflicted in body and spirit and yet called to comfort others.  

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God." (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).

The list could easily go on and on for we live in this upside down kingdom of God which abounds in oxymorons. I was pondering this reality anew at 5:14 a.m. this morning when I found myself lying in a hospital bed at the local urgent care as the result of pain in my toe that woke me from a dead sleep. (I am praying the remaining birthdays in my forties are not spent having some sort of complicated medical issue. I am unimpressed with the decade thus far.) I had the nail removed two weeks ago due to an ingrown toenail that under normal circumstances would have been removed back in March when it first started going squirrelly, but due to my blood counts and my platelets not clotting properly during treatment, we had to just keep babying the thing until after treatment was over and I could get it removed. Turns out the platelets have not rebounded like they should have and I am still having troubles clotting.

The urgent care physician mentioned in passing as she was standing nonchalantly at the foot of my bed, pressing a bandage to my toe trying to get it to stop bleeding, that she too had had cancer. And that's when it struck me afresh. Here was a walking embodiment of a wounded healer. The once sick now tending to the current sick. The once afflicted comforting the now afflicted.

This is to be our aim for those of us who claim the name of Christ and seek to follow him. Living in that space of incongruent identities is no small thing for it will demand much of us—and potentially take much from us. It is a place of deep discomfort and tension. Because it is easy to simply become only one part of the oxymoron. 

We can be afflicted but choose not to leverage that pain to comfort others in their own afflicting. 

We can be living but choose not to sacrifice for the good of others or to the glory of God. 

We can feast to the exclusion of those around us who are hungry, whether physically or spiritually.

Similarly, we can be rich to the exclusion of those around us who lack in whatever form. 

We can be sinful but never choose to move toward the salvation of Jesus Christ, whereby we will be perpetually begging, hungry, afflicted, and dead in an eternity apart from God.

Because in hell perhaps the chief oxymoron is that it is home of the undying dead, an oxymoron that can never be healed or undone once you arrive.

I pray that I am the kind of person who sits well in the tension of the contradictions, someone who seeks to follow the King of Oxymorons, even as I am the same changing person, being conformed to his image even as I walk in the brokenness of my sin.

576 Days Later

Five hundred seventy-six days ago, I had a seizure that sent me to the ER. Five hundred seventy-four days ago, I had a brain biopsy. Five hundred seventy-two days ago, I received a diagnosis of a rare type of brain cancer, an oligodendroglioma, WHO Grade II, with 1p/19q co-deletion. Since that first seizure, I have undergone a brain biopsy and a craniotomy, twelve cycles of chemotherapy, and thirty fractions of radiation. I have also attended numerous speech, physical, and occupational therapy appointments, probably an equal number of appointments with neurosurgeons, radiation oncologists, neuro-oncologists, neuropsychologists, and assorted other specialists I’ve had to pick up along the way, as well as a number of blood draws, MRIs, and CT scans. I have had a total of forty-one staples removed from my skull on two separate occasions. I didn’t drive a vehicle for eight months and was unable to live independently for ten months. As Kate Bowler said in her book No Cure for Being Human, “In times of tragedy, everyone is an accountant” (47). I have become a very good accountant in the last 576 days, although ‘tragedy’ feels a bit steep for my circumstances.

I have shaved my head multiple times. I have lost sleep. I have thrown up. I have lain on the bathroom floor, waiting to throw up. I have lost weight. I have had mysterious rashes that made me itch so badly I bruised my body up one side and down the other. I have struggled to eat. I have had nausea so severe that even the taste of water made me gag. I have swallowed innumerable pills.

I have plunged into the depths of despair, depression, grief, and sadness. I have wept at times until I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I have had multiple seizures—at the gym, in the ER, in post-op, in the neurocritical care unit, and at home. I have wondered how I was going to make it to the next hour, let alone the next day or the next week. I have wondered if my left arm would ever work properly again and if I would ever make it back to the gym. I have felt as though I were walking through a metaphorical fire so hot it was going to burn me alive, my lungs gasping for air.

Five hundred seventy-six days ago, I was told I had brain cancer.

Five hundred seventy-six days later, I am told I still have brain cancer.

Those may seem like depressing statements to pair together, but I find them wildly miracle-filled and full of hope because of what has transpired deep in my heart and mind (quite literally) during those days in between those two statements. I will start by saying what I know has not happened.

Not once have I been bitter or angry with God, and not once have I asked him why. (For a woman whose favorite question in life is "why?" and who is extremely prone to bitterness, this transformation alone is perhaps a greater miracle than being cured of cancer.) I have never felt abandoned or forsaken. To quote Kate Bowler again, but from her book Everything Happens for a Reason, “At a time when I should have felt abandoned by God, I was not reduced to ashes. I felt like I was floating, floating on the love and prayers of all those who hummed around me like worker bees, bringing notes and flowers and warm socks and quilts embroidered with words of encouragement” (121).

I remember telling my boss when he came to visit me the day after I was admitted to the ER. I said very pragmatically, like I was giving an emotional shoulder shrug, “Boss, people get cancer every day. Why would I think I’m exempt from that reality?” I knew God didn’t owe me anything. I didn’t shake my fists at him. I didn’t beat down the door of heaven with my own battering ram, demanding answers. In the words of Max Lucado, “God owes no one anything. No reasons, no explanations. Nothing. If He gave them, we couldn’t understand them.” I didn’t stomp my foot and throw a tantrum. I knew him, and I knew he had a purpose and a plan. Was I remembering that when I was sobbing my way through rehab as the therapists handed me tissues like they were handing out candy at a parade? No. Was I remembering that when I was staring in the mirror as my dad shaved my head in the sterile, bright white light of the hospital bathroom? No. Was I remembering that when I was racked with seizures, asking whomever was in closest proximity to hold my left hand steady? No. But God kindly and gently brought the truth of his sovereignty to the forefront of my mind—in time. He is a God of process, after all.

On the night of my brain biopsy on February 5, just two days before the formal diagnosis, I texted my immediate family and a few close friends:

I don’t know what comes next, but I do know this beyond a shadow of a doubt:

Jesus is in my next. And that’s all I—or anyone else—needs to know. I put a stake in the ground a long time ago regarding what I believe to be true about God, and the presence or absence of suffering and bad things won’t change that. This song by Christy Nockels has long been my anthem: ‘Should I ever be surrounded by the fire or the flame, there’s a name I will remember, there’s a name I will proclaim. Let it be, let it be, let it be Jesus.’

If all this brings me closer to Jesus, then I’ll take it. For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

I love each of you, and your prayers will not be in vain. He may choose to save me from the fire, and this mass may vanish in a miracle. Or he may not. Either way, I get Jesus.

Five hundred seventy-six days later, after all the chaos that comes with a cancer diagnosis, I still stand by those words.

I may still have cancer, but I also still have Jesus.

If I have not been bitter, angry, or forsaken, then I can also say, on the flip side, what has happened for the better. I have plunged into the depths of his goodness, kindness, and mercy. I have wept with gratitude at times until I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I’ve had multiple encounters when I have been so aware of his presence—at my parents’ house, walking laps around their yard; in my car, reveling in the freedom of driving again; and at my house, washing dishes and marveling at the movement of my left hand working as it once did. I have seen him stop one of my seizures instantly when I cried out to him. I have walked through a fire so hot I thought it was going to burn me alive, but I have also seen a fourth in the fire with me, just as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did in Daniel 3. I have marveled at his timing and how so many things happened at the precise moment to preserve and protect me and my family. I have had far more good days than bad days. In so many ways, my cancer experience has been anything but ‘typical.’ (Although, as my neuro-oncologist loves to say, a phrase which I came to loathe, “It’s different for everyone.” And let’s also remember this is not the suffering Olympics.)

I would never wish these past eighteen months on anyone, for they haven proven to include the very worst days of my life. But they have also included some of the sweetest days of my life. These past few months, in particular, have been incredibly precious to me. After the previous summer, which just felt like such a dogfight—going to rehab, starting chemo, and then going to radiation every day—this summer has felt nothing like that. This summer has instead felt so redemptive and restful, filled with peace and stillness, as if I have been hidden in the shadow of his wing or by the brook at Cherith, as Elijah was in 1 Kings 17. It has been the exact opposite of everything that was last summer.

And it has been these days that I wouldn’t trade for anything. Kate shared again in Everything Happens for a Reason how terrified she began to feel at the prospect of losing that floating feeling. I understand that terror myself now. She began asking herself and others what she would do when that feeling was gone. They generally responded that the feeling would, in fact, go, and there would be no formula for retrieving it. “But they offered me this small bit of certainty, and I clung to it. When the feelings recede like the tides, they said, they will leave an imprint. I would somehow be marked by the presence of an unbidden God” (122).

I may still have brain cancer after all those sleepless nights and innumerable tears, but I can say unequivocally that a million little miracles have happened in these last 576 days, and I have been deeply marked by the presence of an unbidden God.

While I don’t know what the next 576 days hold, I do know this: 

Jesus is in my next, and by His grace, I will continue to say, “Let it be Jesus.”

For however many days there are yet to my life, may God get his glory out of me.

PS: Remember this song? It was the first song that played during my first MRI. And then today, it was the last song that played during my last (for now) MRI. You're obviously not supposed to move when you have an MRI, but I desperately wanted to reach for my already snotty nose. I heard the first notes of the song come on, and I could immediately feel the tears dripping down my cheeks into the ear plugs.

Functional Update

Whew, gang. We made it! And I do mean ‘we’! At the start of all this when we were seeking a second opinion at Ohio State, the neuro-oncologist there said that he can always tell which patients will have the best outcomes by whether someone comes with them to the appointments or if they come alone. In so many ways, you all have been with me to every appointment and my outcomes are better for it. You have encouraged me in so many ways with your comments and prayers. “[You] came in like priests and mirrored back to me the face of Jesus. When [you] sat beside me . . . my own suffering began to feel like it had revealed to me the suffering of others, a world of those who, like me, are stumbling around in the debris of dreams they thought they were entitled to and plans they didn’t realize they had made” (Everything Happens, 121).

The process is by no means over, as I will have cancer for the rest of my life, short of an act of God. And I do feel this need to toss out this caution: Chemotherapy is over, but that most certainly does not mean that I am “healthy,” or that I can go back to life as I once knew it. I can never go back. But finishing chemo treatment is one heck of a milestone to mark. I usually am not one to lack for words, but I simply cannot express how grateful I have been for the large and mighty army of prayer warriors that have surrounded me, sent me gifts (it felt like Christmas there for awhile!), cards, texts, and emails. I have saved every card anyone has ever sent me.

Right side is from February 3, 2024,
left side is from September 2, 2025.

The last few rounds of chemo were largely uneventful, thankfully. I had an MRI earlier today where we compared today's scan to my last one in June and it continues to show the tumor is stable. But yowza, when we looked at from eighteen months ago in February 2024 to now, it is striking to me how much tumor (anything in bright white) was removed via surgery (the big black hole) and then through radiation and chemo. The measurements always need to be taken with a grain of salt, as images can vary from one MRI machine to another, and the placement of the measuring points are not always going to be spot on.

All in all, it's a given that I am glad this process is over. The prognosis for my type of cancer is fairly positive, although as I have stated in a post from last year, I have never directly asked the question, "What is the prognosis?" It ultimately doesn't matter to me what the answer is.

So what's next?

As far as treatment itself, it's obviously over. We will now have MRIs roughly every three months to start with and then eventually every six- to nine-months. It will be years, however, before we drop down to even one time a year. I will continue to be under the care of the neuro-oncologist and the seizure specialist over the long term. I remain seizure-free, and I was actually able to moderately lower one of the seizure meds under the watch of the seizure specialist. 

As for writing and providing updates, here’s my game plan moving forward. I’m going to keep writing reflective pieces as I am compelled no matter what, so that’s not going to change. I’m more than sixteen years into writing on this site, so cancer or no cancer, it’s baked into my life at this point. 

However, I will no longer post any specific health updates except when I have routine scans.

For those who want the convenience of email notifications whenever I publish something and haven’t yet subscribed, you can do so at this link. I will not use your email for any other purpose than to send notifications on new posts.

Again, what an encouragement this faithful little community of readers has been to me since my first cancer-related post back on February 13, 2024. Thank you will never be enough, but thank you anyway. You have indeed been with me to every appointment and have been like priests mirroring back to me the face of Jesus.

General Update: Into the Homestretch

I've noted this below in the main text, but for those who skim and may miss this, I've chosen for this to be my last post until I am completely done with chemotherapy, likely sometime in September. I'm not Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, but I do want to manage expectations by giving everyone a heads up.

Over a year ago when I first learned I would have roughly fourteen months of chemotherapy to get through, I truly felt like a year was going to get wiped off the calendar of my life, that somehow it was just all going to get sucked into a black hole of some kind, never to be seen again or remembered. Remember how those first couple years with COVID we all had this weird sense of time? Our worlds had been uprooted and time somehow both simultaneously chewed us up and spit us out, leaving us disoriented, and yet at the same time, time still carried on.

The final three cycles of chemotherapy are stretching out before me. Someone asked the other day if I felt like the time had gone by fast or if it had felt like an eternity. I had to think about it. In some ways it's flown by, but it also hasn't felt like it's been moving at a total snail's pace either. It's just - been - this weird sense of time I've been living in for the last fifteen months, this vortex of vagueness. 

I am eager to reach the end of treatment and have a life that doesn't exist in twenty-eight day increments. When we were children, we measured life by school years and summer breaks. In college, we measured life by semesters and spring breaks. And then in adulthood, it's just this gaping openness with no distinct markers, other than perhaps by jobs, children's birthdays, or anniversaries. But as someone who has cancer, I have marked my existence in this past year by cycles: 

• Cycle 1: "Cycle 12 is sooooo far away." 
• Cycle 4: "Yuck." 
• Cycle 6: "Halfway there!"
• Cycle 8: "Absolute misery. Good Lord Almighty have mercy." 
• Cycle 9: "Best one yet. Only three more to go!"

I am eager to not be hyperaware of how much water I'm drinking in the course of a single day or keeping a daily log of symptoms. I am eager to keep making plans. 

My most recent MRI was earlier this week, and it showed that the tumor is stable. I met with the neuro-onc this afternoon, and I told him much of what I had reported in my last post: This has been by far the best cycle. I feel like I've been bursting at the seams with energy and productivity. I've been cranking through my to do lists, and it's felt good to have such a long stretch of days where I have felt consistently well. I had an ah-ha! moment a couple weeks back when I realized the anti-nausea patch I wore through all five of the medication days in cycle eight was actually what made me feel so miserable. For a supposed anti-nausea medication, it made my nausea worse. I tried it again at the beginning of this cycle and within an hour of wearing it, I felt side effects settling in. I lasted all of eight hours wearing it. Shortly after I took it off, all of the side effects dissipated.

As I look to this final homestretch of cycles, I've given a lot of thought to what I want them to look like. I have felt a strong prompting from the Holy Spirit that I need to pull back from some things, while leaning hard into others. 

I want to continue to focus on overall health so that when I do reach the end of chemo, I'm already in a place to rebound quickly from any lingering side effects. I've got a few appointments set up with a functional medicine dietician and a functional medicine nurse to sort out some optional testing I chose to do, which traditional medicine wouldn't normally consider.

I'm going to continue to focus on physical strength and recovery. I'm still going to the gym once per week and will do so until the end of treatment, at minimum. From there, I'll assess whether I'm in a place where I can handle going back to the group training sessions. 

I've got some home projects I want to get in order, including painting some rooms and sprucing up my yard.

There's an assortment of other tasks on the to-do list, and in light of that, I will not be posting anymore updates to the blog until I am completely done with chemo, which will likely be sometime in September. Consider it a form of hibernation, only in summer instead of winter. As a good friend noted, though, it will not be a time of isolation, but it will be a time for separation from a few things, including these blog updates. If you've been along for the entire ride, then you'll remember I took a break last August after I finished radiation and was on break from chemo. Think of it like that, only longer. Soon enough the fat bears in Katmai will be making an appearance and they can keep you entertained. Around late June, they usually start surfacing, and you can keep tabs on Explore.org's webcams for when that goes live.

This doesn't mean you can't contact me or reach out to me. It just means the public-facing side of this kerfuffle called cancer is an area where I'm hitting pause for a time. So, if you have my personal contact info anyway, don't feel like you can reach out via text, phone call, email, or snail mail.

I personally am praying a lot here lately that God would grant me eyes that see, ears that ear, a mind that trust, and a heart that obeys. The Secretariat prayer from last June's update is still in my mind, as odd as that one may seem. I want to get stronger and faster through each of these remaining cycles. I welcome your prayers on those matters, as well. I'm also praying there would be no side effects in the remaining cycles and that I would manage my time well.

Until the fall, may the bears be with you.

Mementos and Memories

I'm not much of a collector, at least not in terms of material possessions. I had a friend tell me once that if people were to break into my place to rob it, they'd think someone had beat them to the job. Mind you, at the time he said this, I had gone from living in a 350 sq. ft. studio apartment to roughly a 1,200 sq. ft. condo. My parents thought I had been living in a shoebox in the first instance, and I thought I was living in a mansion in the second. I basically had no furnishings when I moved into the condo because of the shoebox I had come from. I slept with my mattress on the floor for I don't know how many months until I finally bought a bedroom suite, and I borrowed a couple of folding chairs from my parents for a number of months, too, while I sorted out what to do about kitchen furniture.

It's not that I didn't want to spend the money or anything. I just simply didn't care. Dealing with that version of adulting is a little soul-sucking and requires a lot of energy for me. I rather dread shopping and browsing around to find a good deal or looking through styles. Things like Pinterest and Etsy make my eyes glaze over, or at the very least make me feel very overwhelmed. It took me seven months to work up the energy to finally buy a couch when I first moved into the condo. Even in my current house, which I bought three years ago, I just now bought a combo bookcase/filing cabinet for files I've been carting around in a copy paper box for probably four years and books I've had stacked up on the floor for at least a year.

About the closest I have come to collecting material things are smashed pennies and ticket stubs. Both are compact, easily portable, and the items themselves clearly mark a moment or location, as there is identifying information inherent in their nature. Meaning when you look at any one of my ticket stubs you can clearly see things like a date, time, or location. Also, in the scrapbook in which I keep them (where they are all in order by day, month, and year), I typically write off to the side who I was with when I experienced the event. I have nearly every ticket from any sort of concert, recital, movie, etc. I've been to since 1998. Yes, you read that right. 1-9-9-8. If someone really wanted to, they could probably cobble together a narrative timeline of my life just based on that ticket scrapbook alone.

And the smashed pennies? That collection was inadvertently started by my grandparents. For as long as I could remember, they had this sort of 'junk pile' in the middle of their kitchen table filled with knick knacks, mail, an assortment of pens, a napkin holder, and usually a half-empty sleeve of Saltine crackers my grandfather snacked on along with peanut butter, and then a scattering of crumbs around it from Sunday family gatherings. My vague memory tells me this is where I found my first smashed penny somewhere loose in this pile of 'junk.'

It's from a trip my grandparents took ultimately to Australia, but with a stop along the way in Hawaii. They had occasion to visit Pearl Harbor, and the pressed penny from the visit shows an image of the USS Arizona Memorial. They picked up that little coin in 1978, not knowing they'd have a granddaughter someday who would have over 150 similar coins, marking her own travels, from coast to coast and even ones from Russia and New Zealand.*

Then 2024 hit, the 'year of cancer,' as I sometimes call it. Obviously there was -  and is - so much more to last year than merely cancer, but it nevertheless is the defining marker. I acquired precisely two ticket stubs and zero smashed pennies last year. 

However, as last year passed, I unintentionally found myself setting aside little trinkets, little mementos, to mark various moments and memories. A single staple from my brain biopsy (weird, I know). A golf ball I found on one of my morning walks when I was still living at my parents'. There's a story behind that golf ball which I won't get into right now in the interest of time and space. It’s nothing dramatic, but it’s of value to my family. Some of my favorite cards and letters friends sent to me that carried me through hard days. Some of the papers of brain exercises I had to do in rehab. My wristband from the first day of being admitted to the hospital, and I was told I had a large mass on my brain. 

For every tangible item, there are also some intangible items I collected via photographs. I took photos of odd details in my physical surroundings at the time and recently printed a stack to add to my growing collection of tangible items. There's a photo of the light fixture in the room I stayed while at my parents', taken from the angle of how I saw it while lying in bed. I stared at that light fixture for what seemed like hours some days, usually seeing it through tears, wondering how life had taken such a hard left. There's also a photo of this rather large, old osage orange tree at the side of their property, a photo I took on one of my early morning walks when I had a ton of energy from the steroids during radiation. The sunlight is streaming perfectly through the branches and you can see just this wisp of a sunbeam reaching down from its branches.

Memories marked by mementos, a little collection that has grown over the last fifteen months and continues to do so, all tucked into a wooden box, which is part of the collection itself, as it was part of a care package. There are a good deal of moments and memories from last year I'd like to forget. The moment when my dad had to shave my head. The moment when I kept staring at the grid sheet in speech therapy and could not figure out how to solve the task, no matter how hard my brain tried to sort it out. The moments when I couldn't type or get my left hand to work. Every moment of every seizure. The moment when the occupational therapist came into my hospital room and asked me to simply raise my left hand at the wrist and nothing happened. The moment when I texted my friend and told her I didn't know how I was going to make it.

But there's also a good deal I'd like to remember. The moment when I hugged my mom and neither one of us could stop laughing. The moment when I went to a Ben Rector concert with my friend Jill, one of the two ticket stubs I have from last year. The moments when getting mail felt a little like Christmas, a seemingly never-ending stream of cards and care packages. The moment when my co-workers and I successfully pulled off our online conference of nearly 2,000 people and the public was none the wiser for the hellacious year we'd all managed to survive. The moment when I moved back into my house, living independently again, almost a year sooner than we anticipated.

All those tangible items are tucked away in that wooden box, but the box is nearly full and I'll need to upgrade to another size. Because I know the story isn't over and there are moments yet to come that I will want to add to the collection.

And if my 'keep making plans' healthcare system has anything to say about it all, someday I will add more ticket stubs and more smashed pennies to my collections. I look forward to those days.

*And no, please do not make or send me any smashed pennies when you see a machine. I have a small handful from locations I haven't been to that friends have given to me over the years, but I generally prefer to have them from places I personally have been to.

_______________
Health Updates

There was a moment in this latest chemo cycle when I had to pick up the bottle the meds came in to make sure I was shipped and taking the right drugs, I was feeling that amazing. This was BY FAR the best cycle I've had, at least as far as my memory can recall (they all start to run together after awhile). It was like the good Lord himself reached down and flipped a switch. After cycle number eight was so miserable, I really was bracing for number nine. At my last neuro-onc appointment, we decided to lower the dose of chemo this month, see if that helped things. I think that change and several other changes resulted in the improvements. I ended up having minimal nausea and no vomiting. My appetite was normal and I had no problems drinking fluids. I maybe napped a little more, but by and large, had really good energy. It really was stunning how well I felt. I rebounded days sooner than I normally do. You better believe I spent a lot of time thanking God for his kindness.

I'm still savoring the changes the new anti-seizure medication have induced, continuing to improve my ability to function and move through the day. Just doing common, ordinary things, like being able to schedule appointments and run errands in the mornings while also gaining evening hours, too, makes me feel like I have discovered a whole new world. 

My next scan is June 3 to assess again what the tumor looks like. After that, I will start cycle ten, which means I only have three more cycles to go. If the schedule plays out as intended, I should start the last cycle sometime in August and then actually finish in September.

Definitely keep praying that my body would tolerate the drugs with no side effects and that the next scan would show that the tumor has shrunk (I'll also go for vanished!). 

Again, thank you to everyone who continually reaches out and checks on me. I'm still so grateful for the intentionality of each of those gestures.

My Dear Betsy

I love the occasional hidden surprise found tucked in the pages of a library book, and I don't mean the literary kind where you think, "Well, I did not see that coming." I mean the tangible, hold-it-in-your-hands kind. I have found money ($20 once!), bookmarks, personal notes, and other things of the like.

But perhaps the one I found sometime last year was the most timely and the most meaningful of the bunch. I don't remember book in which I found it, or even when precisely. I just know it tumbled out as I paged through the book. (I unashamedly admit that I will often read the last pages of fiction books to see how the ending goes before I start.) The cover was a glowing yellow sunset with a walking bridge over a small creek. The words, "Hope in Him," were scrawled across the top in cursive. 

The words and the image had already roped me in, but the true treasure was what I found on the inside, a needed a reminder in the turmoil, as if the card had been written for me personally and not the stranger it was originally sent to and had accidentally left it behind. The top half of the card included a Bible verse from Hebrews 10:35 written in a femininely-penned cursive in blue ink: "Don't throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that you may do the will of God, and receive what is promised."

Beneath that, on the bottom half, was one part personal note, one part printed text of the greeting card. 

"My dear Betsy" was written in the same cursive blue ink of the Bible verse, then switched over to the formal printed portion, which said, "When things go wrong and all seems lost, hold fast to the promises in God's word. God is faithful."

But what I really loved were the personal additions to the formal print, where the sender underlined all seems lost and added to God is faithful to you, always. ♡ Bonnie

I have no idea who Betsy and Bonnie were or are, but Bonnie's words to Betsy were really Bonnie's words to Courtney. 

So, to my dear Betsy's out there who are reading this and are feeling like everything has gone wrong, may you find this unexpected surprise tucked between the emails in your inbox, and may you remember that when all seems lost, God is faithful to you, always. ♡ Courtney

General Update: What Does One Do With Curls?

My body went and made a liar out of me. In my last update on April 13, I said, "I started round number eight of chemo this past week, and yesterday was the last dose. I had far less nausea this time, having implemented some changes in how to handle it. I haven't been as miserable as the last two cycles have been, but I'm still not out of the clear just yet. I usually give it another 5-7 days after the last dose before I really come up for air." 

I made it sound like it wasn't that bad, but the key word there was yet. 

Judas Priest and a popsicle stick. 

That little window of "5-7 days after" was by far the worst days I've had during chemo yet. I felt absolutely awful. I had vision problems, was sick to my stomach multiple times, had terrible, terrible nausea, and slept a lot. I think I just left the curtains pulled most of the time, living like Isaiah 9:2 conveys, a person 'walking in the land of darkness.' Only I had not yet seen a 'great light,' so to speak. I rotated between the recliner, the couch, and the bed. 

I met with the neuro onc earlier this week and after I explained how bad this round was, he said I had two options: One, I could take a week break before this next cycle, or two, I could forge ahead with the next round but at a slightly lower dose. I opted for option two. I had already mapped out my month around chemo starting at a certain time, and I didn't want to derail that. So, I'll start round number nine (only three more after this!) next week, and I am praying that it is not as bad as this last one. 

Despite my chemo misery, perhaps my 'great light' in all this is my new anti-seizure medication. What a game-changer. All that lobbying and pressing to get it have paid off in spades. I made some rough calculations and based on the hours I've gained back from my morning snoozes and the evening hours of not going to bed so early, I now have an additional twenty hours in my week. TWENTY HOURS. 2-0. Twenty. It is wild to me what a significant difference it has made in my life to not get so drowsy every time I took my medication in the mornings and evenings. I'm feeling like Princess Jasmine in Aladdin, a whole new world has arrived on my doorstep minus the magic carpet and a handsome fella, unfortunately.

Thanks, radiation and chemo.

I know one thing I'm having to use those twenty hours for is trying to figure out what to do with curly/wavy hair that has volume and body. I went forty years of my life with hair that was stick straight and had zero volume or body. I think my mother spent most of my childhood lamenting the fact that my long, blonde hair just simply would.not.hold.curl, no matter how much hair spray she used or how long we left those pink sponge curlers in overnight. Acts of futility and insanity. Just ain't happening. 

And now, I get out of the shower, look in the mirror, and think to myself every day, "What is this mess? And what does one do with it?" I still haven't fully decided what long-term look I am aiming for, but these curls may dictate a lot. 

Generally speaking, the good days are really good, and the bad days are really bad. On the good days, I have lots of energy, I'm productive, I eat well, I'm connecting with friends and family, and generally going about life like normal. 

But those bad days are really bad. I go into hibernation mode and don't want to surface for a long time. I struggle to eat, it's tough to drink water because even that makes me want to gag, and would prefer to fall off the face of the earth for that stretch of time. 

I'm praying this lower dose will help the cause. Thanks to everyone who continues to keep in touch and doesn't take offense when it takes me a chunk of time to respond to texts or calls. It's definitely challenging trying to figure out how to pace my time in the good days between cycles. My month basically gets shrunk from 30 days to 20 days and I think the last couple of cycles, I've overcommitted on those good days in between. Regardless, I'm so grateful for everyone's continued support and prayers, good days and bad.

The Thief of Pain

I actually wrote a very similar version of this piece exactly eleven years ago this week. At that time, I had a herniated disc that was absolutely horrendous in terms of pain. Up to that point, I had never experienced that kind of pain in my life. 

As we look to Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday this weekend, it seemed appropriate to dust it off and freshen it up a bit, not only for myself, but hopefully as a reminder for others.

–––––––––––

It's amazing how fast the walls close in when you're in pain, whether mentally, emotionally, or physically. Whatever form it may be, it can be all-consuming when you've been gutted by grief and loss.

This time one year ago ushered in some of the very darkest, most miserable days of my life.  

Grief, loss, and pain were consuming thoughts.  

I would wake up and think about them.   

I would sit at the kitchen table and think about them. 

I would brush my teeth and think about them.

I would go to bed at night and think about them.  

I would walk and think about them.  

I would breathe and think about them.  

Every waking moment was spent thinking about myself, this hurt, and how to escape it.  I lost track of the number of mental and emotional breakdowns I had, which usually resulted in me in a fetal position on my temporary bed at my parents' house, sobbing, barely able to breathe.

I just wanted it all to go away, telling myself it must be some sort of bad dream.

Ultimately, all I did was think about myself for days on end.

I forgot that a world around me existed or that anyone else around me might be in worse shape.  I did nothing but live in my own little bubble, inside my own little head, unable to see past the end of my own nose and the yawning vortex stretched out before me that had become my life practically overnight.

Looking back on those days and months, I now keep thinking about Jesus, hanging on the cross, in sheer agony and suffering, in the kind of pain that makes mine look like a bucketful of sunshine and rainbows.  And the one fact I simply cannot escape is this:

Even in the face of his impending mortal death, even in his deepest moment of torture and agony, Jesus still noticed the thief next to him.  

Consider this: Think about the worst pain you ever have been in - mentally, emotionally, or physically.  Now multiply that times a hundred. My guess is you didn't care about the rest of the world at that moment. 

But then there's Jesus. 

Pure selflessness even while in agony.  Spikes driven into his hands, spear drawn through his side, a crown of thorns mashed onto his head, blood freely pouring out from seven places.  His back looks like hamburger meat.  His lungs are failing because he can't lift himself up enough to get a breath.  And somehow - somehow - he still manages to notice the man crucified next to him, as noted in Luke 23:39-43:

One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at [Jesus]: "Aren't you the Christ? Save yourself and us!" But the other criminal rebuked him.  "Don't you fear God," he said, "since you are under the same sentence?  We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve.  But this man has done nothing wrong."    

Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."  

Jesus answered him, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise." 

Here's what I find so startling in that moment: 

Jesus noticed the thief.

In that moment, when in his humanity he could have easily ignored either man hanging beside him, when he could have easily said, "Just get me off this cross and make it all go away," he turns to the thief and says, "I notice you.  This is the very reason why I came - was to notice you.  You are not forgotten.  And today you will be with me in paradise."

How many moments have I missed along the way in the midst of all this pain?  How often have I let it eclipse all thought of others around me and their own sorrowing and suffering, or even their joy and gladness?  Here in this season of Lent and Passover, here in this season of giving up in order to gain, here in this season of turning our eyes to the cross - how often did I miss the person next to me?

Jesus knew even on the cross, even in his worst pain, that the pain he was enduring was never about him.

It was about the thief next to him.

And the miracle of miracles is that Jesus still notices the thief and the criminal in me today, the girl who wants to rob the world in order to escape her own pain, the girl who is far too often so very self-absorbed.  

And he still turns to me and says, "Today, today, I notice you. I notice you in your grief, loss, and pain."

I want to be like Jesus.  

I want to turn and notice the world around me, no matter my own pain, no matter my own heartache.  

I don't want to get so myopic that all I do is focus on what's right in front me - and forget that this pain is temporary.  I don't want to forget that someday I'll get to trade it all in, and stand in the light of God's glory, right next to the thief Jesus noticed on the cross next to him over 2,000 years ago.

"Therefore we do not lose heart.  Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."  2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Praise God Sunday's coming.

Haunted by a Question

I’m not much of a dreamer. Five- and ten-year plans don’t exist in my head. They maybe did when I was in college, and I was highly ambitious about my equestrian career. When that whole trajectory changed (for the better, I might add), dreaming about any sort of long-term plan just didn’t make sense in my mind anymore. At that point, just on the leading edge of my 20s, I had already experienced what happens when we make plans: God makes better ones. So, I didn’t really bother myself with dreams or dreaming after that. I wanted to live open-handed and trust that whatever came next was for the best.

Some years ago, I came across one of those conversation-starter question, designed to help launch or deepen social interactions, whether in a group of people or one-on-one: “What do you want to be celebrating one year from now?” 

When I first read that question, someone might as well have hit a kill switch to my brain because I couldn’t think of a single event or goal in response to the question. I have zero imagination for such things, whether big or small. Maybe someone would have said, “One year from now, I want to be celebrating a promotion,” or “I want to be celebrating the birth of a baby,” or “I want to be celebrating my engagement,” etc. Some of you could answer that question without batting an eye, as you have a goal, a clear vision of some kind of what you want life to look like. Or at the very least a hazy vision, an underlying ambition, even if it’s not set against the backdrop of a calendar.

Me? [insert awkwardly long blank stare.]

I’ve never been one who envisioned being married by a certain age, having kids by a certain age, climbing some sort of career progression in a particular fashion, etc. Anything about long-term goals instantly created a loss of signal, like a snowy TV screen. In a culture where extroverts are prized and side hustles are the name of the game, anything less than a seemingly performative, self-promoting nature gets you left in the dust. I was left in the dust long ago - dreamless, aimless, social media-less, and seemingly ambitious-less.

The fact that I couldn’t ever be imaginative enough or enough of a dreamer to answer that question nagged me for years, almost haunted by it in my sleeping and definitely in my waking hours, creating this deeply-rooted insecurity that I was coasting through life because I couldn't ever answer that question. “What is wrong with me, and why do I struggle to answer such a seemingly innocuous question? I felt this deep need to conjure a response to this question, something clear and crisp, firm and tangible. It’s not a particularly complicated question, after all. What do you want to be true of your life one year from now? Sounds easy enough, right?

Crickets every time for me.

And then I found myself lying in a hospital bed on April 20, 2024, and answers to that question began pouring out. In my hazy memory of the moment, my family had left for the day, so no one else was around. The hospital room was quiet and dark, the only light pouring in was from the hallway and maybe the TV. By that point I had been moved out of the neuro critical care unit, and I was attached to far fewer wires and tubes. I was still struggling to text so I honestly don’t remember how I physically went about documenting the list. 

An early prototype

But on that Saturday, April 20, 2024, I finally answered the question that had haunted me for years. My answers had nothing to do with getting married, having kids, getting a promotion, paying off debt, starting my own business, losing weight, or whatever else ends up on lists of dreams, all of which are good dreams. 

The things I wanted to celebrate in a year didn’t even include “be cancer-free.” No, I had a very low bar for my dreams, my hoped-for celebrations. Mine were common and ordinary, yet I might as well have added a final bullet point that said, “Build your own rocket ship to the moon,” as all of the things I wanted to celebrate in a year felt like they were on the same playing field as getting to the moon, so far out of reach. I laid in that wildly uncomfortable hospital bed with thirty-one staples down my head, not daring to conjure up five- and ten-year plans because that felt absolutely terrifying when I couldn’t even fathom life past the next hour, the next day, or the next week. Even one year from then felt incredibly risky. I opened a new note in my phone and I haven't touched it since so that the timestamp would be preserved as proof.

What did I want to celebrate one year from April 20, 2024?

I want to celebrate

• Not being in a hospital
• Being able to type and have full use of my left arm
• Being back at the gym
• Being back in my own house
• Driving again
• Getting a tattoo
• Having a full head of hair
• 
  

Even now, I weep writing and re-reading that list, as the memories of those days hold so much pain, so much grief, and so much loss. I hadn't been able to answer that haunting question for years, and then when I do? 

I was wishing for the simplest of things, like having hair and being able to type.

So, here we are, one year later, and I am celebrating almost everything on that list:

I was discharged from the hospital on April 22, 2024, and have not been back (as an admitted patient) since.

I am able to type and have full use of my left arm. There isn't a thing in the course of daily living that I find I can't do because of my arm or my fingers not working properly.

I started back to the gym in February of this year.

I moved out of my parents' and back to my own house last November.

I was cleared by my doctors to drive back roads last September and on the highway in November.

(The tattoo situation hasn't happened yet, but it's definitely on the post-chemo list of dreams. I've got a temporary stand-in for now thanks to my niece's inspiration of Bic's BodyMark temporary tattoo markers. How it looks in the photo above is basically what I want the permanent one to look like, using the words "Let it be Jesus," the song I laid claim to when everything started crashing down.) 

After I lost one side of my hair to radiation and we shaved it last July, my hair was finally long enough here this February to get it cut for the first time in over a year. I do, indeed, have a full head of hair now.

And just like that, an unfathomable, out of reach, list of dreams has become reality since I wrote that note. 

And it wasn't because I 'manifested' anything, 'set my intentions,' or put these things 'out into the universe.' That list wasn't about thinking positive thoughts and willing them into existence. 

No, the answers became reality because of a gracious, kind, and sovereign God who made them so. This wasn't about me manifesting anything. I have said from the day of my diagnosis that this was going to be a Jesus story, not a cancer story. And the achievement of those desires, were certainly not because of my righteousness, but rather his great mercy (Daniel 9:18).

It was - and still is - a Jesus story. A story of a God who has done far more than I could ever ask, answer for myself, or imagine.

The last bullet point, a blank one, was unintentional, but for whatever reason, I left it at the time. 

Maybe it was for all that was yet to come, the moments I hadn't yet experienced, but would want to be celebrating all the same:

• Being seizure-free.
• Remaining employed and working throughout this past year.
• Making it through rehab appointments without crying.
• Washing my own dishes with my left hand.
• Having enough gumption to advocate for myself to get the medical care I needed.
• Reading a book with no vision problems, being able to see all letters and all words.
• Writing 52 'devotions' per my dad's challenge.

I haven't really given much thought to what I want to celebrate one year from now. At least the thought of hours, days, and weeks feel less risky, but the years still do at times. So, for now, we'll keep the list of dreams simple:

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"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen" (Ephesians 3:20).

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Health Update

The self-advocacy victory pose.

I finally have in my possession the new anti-seizure medication! It was an instant change from the time I took my first dose - the drowsiness vanished! Now, I'm not suddenly unleashing myself on the world and going hog-wild with not being sucked in by a mid-morning medication-induced nap. However, this does now allow me to work consistently and once the day gets rolling, it stays rolling. I am filled with gratitude in light of this change, and it affirmed my persistence in lobbying as hard as I did in sorting through the mess of the healthcare system.

Then in the midst of all that, I got a toe infection. A toe infection, of all things. It's been a chronic problem child over the years, having had the nail removed twice already. The oncologist had me move quickly to get my hands on an antibiotic so that a small problem didn't become a big problem. Chemo would have been delayed if the infection hadn't gotten under control, but the antibiotic cleared it out and the podiatrist cleared me to forge ahead as scheduled. 

I also had a neuropsychological evaluation. The results? I still have a brain and one that happens to work fairly well. I'm glad the experts could confirm. I had requested the evaluation awhile back (their wait list is incredibly long), just so I could have baseline data I could refer to in the future, if need be. Ideally, it would have been done before the craniotomy last April, but I didn't even know such a thing existed then and likely wouldn't have been able to get in anyway. It's a lengthy test, taking about three hours to complete. My brain was a little fried after needing to burn so much cognitive energy, but I made it. It was primarily a fact-finding mission, meant to establish a baseline of data. So, I won't be doing it again anytime in the near future.

I started round number eight of chemo this past week, and yesterday was the last dose. I had far less nausea this time, having implemented some changes in how to handle it. I haven't been as miserable as the last two cycles have been, but I'm still not out of the clear just yet. I usually give it another 5-7 days after the last dose before I really come up for air.

This week marks one year since my craniotomy (April 16), or as somebody said in a support group that I attended one time, "crani-versary." This to me is the true anniversary of when everything started, not the February anniversary of the diagnosis. This is when the deepest parts of grief and chaos were ushered in. I honestly don't know how I made it out of bed every day, surrounded mentally and emotionally by so much darkness. But God in his faithfulness and grace hoisted me out of bed, moment by moment. I am forever changed by his kindness.

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Bonus!

Unrelated but related, I have been listening to Rita Springer's newest album Fed by Ravens, and there is not a song on that album that I don't feel deep, deep in my soul. If you're looking for some new tunes, or if you feel like you're in your own wilderness season, give this song a listen, and then listen to the entire album. I've never heard another album like this in my life that is so visceral and raw, an honest depiction of the wilderness seasons of life for a Christ-follower.