Ex Cancer, Scientia

Ex luna, scientia. 

From the moon, knowledge.

This was the motto of Apollo 13, a mission on which NASA intended to complete a lunar landing, conduct experiments, and gain knowledge of the planet. Only the crew never made it to their intended destination. They were thrown wildly off course when an oxygen tank exploded and disabled part of the life support system.

Instead of being famous for landing on the moon, astronaut Jim Lovell would be famous for uttering the words, "Houston, we have a problem," which was a bit of an understatement in hindsight. On the morning of my first seizure that led to the discovery of my tumor, I texted a friend later that morning while still in the ER and wrote something to the effect, "Well, I've had a bit of an eventful morning..." We laughed about it later because she told me only I would utter such a statement relative to the circumstances. It was my own way of saying 'Houston, we have a problem.'

Because I definitely had a problem on my hands. God went and stirred my O₂ tanks, so to speak, which led to things blowing up, and the trajectory of my life forever altered. I wasn't entirely sure at the time how I was going to make it back to Planet Earth, back to safe, familiar ground. And not just make it back, but make it back using the best trajectory for re-entry that didn't leave me incinerated in a blaze of fire and ash. Two surgeries, a round of radiation, more seizures than I cared to experience, a lot of rehab appointments, and six of twelve cycles of chemotherapy later, we might just be getting somewhere that doesn't involve a constant sense of waiting for things to blow up.

After the brain biopsy in February of last year and the confirmation of the diagnosis, there was a lull between that and the craniotomy in mid-April. In that space, I reached out to Michelle, co-owner of the gym, and asked if we could see about putting some workouts together while I was out of commission and wouldn't formally be in the gym anymore, but with all these caveats of what exercises were off-limits because of the weakness and motor control issues I had, even before the craniotomy. 

I asked her if she had ever seen the movie Apollo 13, particularly the one scene where some of the guys from Mission Control dump a pile of parts on the table and then tell the rest of the team they have to assemble a makeshift carbon dioxide filter using only items taken from the pile of parts. She was familiar with the scene, and I said, "That's what this feels like. 'Here's all the working parts Courtney has, guys. Let's figure out how to get her home, using only this, this, and this.'"

I went to the gym today for a formal baseline assessment session with Michelle, the first since the seizure one year ago. As a joke, I bought us both stickers of the official insignia of the Apollo 13 mission. I now regularly use the phrase "Let's Apollo 13 this thing," in a variety of life circumstances, meaning let's figure out how to rig this thing - whether this 'thing' is my life or whatever else the phrase may be applied to - together with the limited resources we have. 

I wanted - and still do - anybody and everybody who knew anything about cancer and health at the table, housed in my Mission Control. I can't make it back home alive based on my own knowledge, no more than Jim Lovell could have gotten himself, Fred Haise, and Jack Swigert back to Planet Earth alive based on his own knowledge. He needed every ounce of knowledge housed in Mission Control to figure out the math and science necessary to keep them on a path headed home, and preferably with a pulse.

Neuro-oncologist? Pull out every degree and every shred of knowledge you have ever encountered in your years of medical training. Go.

Neurosurgeon? Review every surgery you've ever done like this before and study it backwards and forwards. You better know the brain like the back of your hand. Go.

Occupational therapist? Find the exercises necessary to address neurological issues on the left side of the body. Go.

Radiation oncologist? Show me exactly where and how this radiation is about to go down. Explain it to me in layman's terms. Go.

Nutritionist? Tell me what is going to optimize my existence and not leave me wasting away to nothing. Go.

Physical therapist? Start talking. Go.

Acupuncturist? Break open those needles. Go.

Speech therapist? Pull a seat up to the table. Go.

If I thought someone possessed knowledge I didn’t have and if it was knowledge I thought was going to keep me alive, I wanted them in Mission Control. 

Ex cancer, scientia. 

From cancer, knowledge.

But I also was gaining my own knowledge that would never be found in a textbook, nor in anyone else's medical degree, skillset, story, or memoir.  It was knowledge I could gain only through the process itself, through everything falling apart and things being shoved wildly off course. This entire blog from the last year could serve as Exhibit A, the things I've been learning from and because of cancer. Knowledge unique to me and me alone.

It has been very expensive knowledge to gain. And there was no way I could have studied for it, just like none of the NASA guys had ever had to figure out a way to make things fit together that were never designed to fit together in the first place in order to keep the crew from dying of asphyxiation. But they did. They Apollo 13'ed the thing.

Jim Lovell may not have made it to the moon on that 'failed' mission, but he did come back to Planet Earth alive and, I imagine, with knowledge. It wasn't knowledge of the moon, as there would never be a lunar landing for Jim in his lifetime. But I have no doubt he came back to Planet Earth with a different understanding of the world he once knew - perhaps a better, richer, fuller understanding. 

I don't know what my equivalent of the 'moon' is, but I can't help but wonder if the knowledge I gained by not landing there is infinitely more valuable than the knowledge I would have gained if I had.

From sorrow, knowledge.

From joy, knowledge.

From peace, knowledge.

From disability, knowledge.

From grief, knowledge.

From adversity, knowledge.

From depression, knowledge.

From anxiety, knowledge.

From hope, knowledge.

When our lives are thrown off course and leave us in places we never expected, are we willing to be trained by that experience, to gain wisdom and knowledge from it? Or will we allow bitterness and resentment to settle in, defiantly refusing to have our sharp edges smoothed, because things didn't go like we planned?

Ex luna, scientia.

Ex cancer, scientia.

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Health Updates

Ya know, there's nothing quite like reading fresh FMLA paperwork that your doctor just filled out, and in the space where it says to "provide your best estimate of how long the condition lasted or will last," they simply write "life long non curable." Womp, womp, womp. To see it written like that wasn't any sort of fresh punch in the gut. It's just reality. Kinda like, "Well, isn't that a bummer."

In other far more exciting news, I got my first legit haircut since last February that a) was by choice, and b) did not involve me shaving it! All of the hair I lost due to radiation (the left photo, which was kind of the worst point of the hair situation) has grown back in (the right photo), although the length still doesn't quite match the other side where I didn't lose any, but we're slowly getting there. I actually don't think I'll go back to my old hair style. I rather like this shorter cut. I just need more hair to keep my head warm. I still wear a beanie almost 24/7.

I was supposed to start chemo cycle #6 last week, but my platelets dipped again last blood draw, not as low as cycle #4, but enough that we needed to delay so that they could rebound some before moving forward. They rebounded enough by this past Monday that I started the pills this past Tuesday night. 

Once this cycle is done, I'll be at the halfway mark. I have my next MRI scheduled for the end of this month, as well as a six-month follow up with the radiation oncologist. I will also have a six-month follow up with the seizure specialist at the beginning of March. So, generally, a handful of benchmark/follow up appointments coming up.

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To The Woman of One Year Ago

Next week marks one year since life was upended - February 3 was the first seizure, February 5 was the brain biopsy, and February 7 was the day of the official diagnosis - and I've been thinking a lot about what I wish the me of one year ago had known about what was about to unfold.  If I could stand face-to-face with that woman, what would I tell her? I've always been someone who likes to know what to expect in advance. It's probably partly why I enjoy my job as an event planner - I can help other people know what to expect, where to go, what to do, how to navigate events and spaces. When you know what to expect, you take the edge off the uncertainty and ambiguity, lessen the anxiety associated with the unknown. Except that's not life most of the time. Most of the time it's hairpin turns that weren't on the map. It's hurricanes forming offshore that no meteorologist saw coming. It's loss and death and grief and heartbreak that were just hanging out in the abyss of some unknown you had not yet encountered. Life is punctuated, italicized, bolded, and underlined by the unknown.

If I could take the collective experience of this past year and give a grand speech to the me of one year ago, what would I say to her about all that is about to happen, to help her know what's coming around the hairpin turn? (Yes, I know parentheses would not be used while speaking, but let's overlook that fact for the sake of this post, shall we?)

This is what I would tell that woman:

You and I both know you like to walk into situations knowing what to expect. So let me help you manage those expectations about how the next twelve months are about to go down. (Your neuro-onc will be exactly zero help in this department. You will come to despise the phrase, "It's different for everyone," which is basically a non-response response he will use so many times you’ll want to launch out of the exam chair and slap him. I’m not saying you will do such a thing; I’m saying you will want to. Just ask your parents. They were there to witness the moment.)

You are on the edge of a precipice, you just don’t know it yet. You are about to free fall into what will oddly be the most gloriously hope-filled while simultaneously most misery-filled time of your life. You will take up swearing with greater regularity than ever before; particularly and surprisingly, the F-word will be your word of choice. You will toss around F-bombs like candy at a parade. (Your mother will not be pleased, your friends will be surprised, but in turn, you will be surprised to learn one of your sweetest book-loving friends will violently launch a book across the room when she learns of your diagnosis. You have good friends who know when it's okay to throw things and drop F-bombs in your honor.) You will finally get to fulfill that secret wish of yours to shave your head, but not under the circumstances you would have ever envisioned. In fact, you’ll shave it so many times eventually you will stop crying when you do it. You accept it as a new normal. (But you should still ask the neurosurgeon to shave your head in its entirety during surgery in April, none of that partial nonsense. You are going to look ridiculous when he does that.)
 
Your search history will soon be filled with words like “oligodendroglioma,” “Temozolomide,” and “morbilliform rash.” But you made the right call on not searching for the prognosis for cancers such as yours. The answer won’t matter to you then and it still won’t matter to you now.
 
You will face days that are unimaginably hard, the hardest of your life thus far, and when you scan the horizon line of your future, you will wonder if the light will ever peek over that line again. It will. You will scan that same horizon line of the future and wonder if your left arm will always be this clumsy, dysfunctional thing attached to your body, destined to a lifetime of one-star Yelp reviews and tremors. It won’t. And yes, you will get through more than one rehab appointment without crying. Pinky promise.
 
You will discover that chemo and radiation are not the blackholes you thought they’d be. Sure, there will be bad moments, but take to heart now the words a friend will speak to you in the wake of your upcoming surgery in April: “So often we dress rehearse tragedy instead of joy.” Dress rehearse joy. Don’t dress rehearse puking your guts up. Don’t dress rehearse a neverending life of depression, sadness, grief, and death. Dress rehearse a life filled with joy amid the sorrow and a peace deep in your soul that can only be explained by Jesus. Dress rehearse the day when the seizures stop because the day will come when they do.
 
You will be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of mail, texts, and gifts you will receive from friends from all stages of life. You’ve spent decades collecting and investing in these friends, now reap the benefit. They want to love you, and they want to show you, so let them. None of them are going to care if you send a thank you note or not. Just don’t communicate with anyone in a written format for about a week or two after your surgery in April. Girl, just don’t. The writer in you is going to look back at texts and be horrified at the gibberish you communicated. Spare yourself the embarrassment.

Ignore your neurosurgeon; get that neuro-psych eval scheduled, no matter how long he tells you the wait is or that the results won't be of any value. 

Don’t procrastinate on scheduling that appt with the integrative oncologist.   

There will be that stretch in April and May racked with seizures, rehab, depression, and overwhelming grief and fear about starting treatment. You will feel like you are in a dogfight worthy of Top Gun. It will be no walk in the park, Kazansky, I can assure you. But I can also assure you eventually the fighting will ease and you’ll find yourself back on solid ground and your plane intact. Sort of. Mostly.  

Don’t go back to work a mere 3 weeks after your April surgery. Give yourself more time. You’ll have ample time off stashed to cover yourself. Take a chill about whether you're going to lose your job and your health insurance. It's going to be fine. 

Don’t bother with the ginger chews for nausea. They’re like sucking on Pledge-flavored taffy. You don’t like ginger to begin with, so don’t kid yourself. 

Go to Kristina’s wedding in July, and wear that black dress you bought inspired by Erin Krakow in the Hallmark movie It Was Always You.

Celebrate your 40^th at your own house with your friend Emily, not some cabin in the woods. Because at that point you’ll still be living with your parents (Surprise! You’re about to move in with them for seven months!), so going to your own house is going to feel like a treat all its own.   

Be patient with yourself. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither will a brain with a 2-ish inch tumor heal in a day. Your body is about to do all sorts of weird things. Keep calm and carry on. 

Don’t take that antibiotic during radiation. Save yourself from the most ridiculous rash of your life.

Watch out for that day when you go to Amish country with your mom in October. Load up on that anti-nausea medication. 

Watch out for that lady who asks you for medical advice on that live radio interview. 

You will learn to hug your mom, really hug her. Gone will be the days of that half-hearted wimpy stuff you’ve spent most your life doing. And you and your dad are going to develop this odd little handshake that isn't really a handshake, but a series of fist bumps, hand fireworks, and head rubs.

Don’t worry, you’ll be able to renew your driver’s license without having to take a photo of you with no hair. The wonder of progress is that bureaucracy isn’t always destined to exist in the Stone Age. They’ll let you renew your license using your old photo. And bonus! You won’t even have to leave your couch to do it.  

You won't discover until the end of cycle four about the secret-ish oncology-specific lab on the third floor that gets your blood results before you even get out of the parking garage. Take advantage of this lab from the beginning.  

Oh, and make sure you keep all your trash cans emptied and ready for chemo cycle four.  Brace for impact on that one. Just go ahead and skip the dress rehearsing joy part because it ain’t happening. 

And for the love of Pete, cut sugar out sooner so that your shoulder quits hurting, ya big dummy.  

And then, I would close by saying to that woman, pressing one hand to each side of her face ever so gently, pull her close, look her dead in the eye, and whisper with conviction, “Your God is good and your God is sovereign, just like you told the nurse on the day of your diagnosis. He’s going to prove it, and you’re.going.to.make.it. One day at a time. My God, woman, you're going to make it.”

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Health Updates

I figured if my great-niece Stevie can get her own monthly photos posted of the first year of her life, why can't I do similarly and post yearly photos even though I'm 40? While it's not one year since the surgery and shaving my hair, I am happy to say I've now got a bit of a Will Howard-esque (QB of Ohio State for all of you non-football fans) haircut going now. It's just a touch too short to fully cover my scar, and I still live in a beanie hat practically 24/7 (it's amazing how much heat you lose from your head!), but it won't be too long before I go back to my stylist and get it trimmed evenly.

This latest cycle was significantly less dramatic than the last one, thankfully. No vomiting, no laying on the bathroom floor. Nausea? yes. Decreased appetite? Yes. I'm trying to pack on some weight as I've lost 15 pounds since the surgery. There wasn't much of me to start with so I'm working on getting healthy food in me when I can. Although, that donut I ate a couple weekends ago was gloriously delicious.

I saw the neuro-onc earlier this week for my routine monthly check-in. (And yes, he used the phrase, "It's different for everyone." Drives me bonkers.) We are going to keep the same dosage for the upcoming cycle, which will start at the end of next week (pending no squirrelly blood results) - and will mark the halfway point of chemo! At the end of February, I will have my next MRI. I will also see the radiation oncologist for my six-month follow-up since radiation ended at the end of February. 

Ultimately, I have far more good days than bad days. I'm trying to connect more with friends, but that has its own challenges as it feels like there is such a backlog of people to catch up with. The conversations that are the toughest physically are the ones where I end up shouldering most of the talking. I get winded and I can tell cognitively things start to take a hit and I get a bit disoriented at times. So, if you're around me - you're gonna have to talk about yourself, too, so I can get a break!

I'm trying to get a lot of routine healthcare taken care of - eye doctor, dentist, dermatologist, etc. As my friend said, "Everybody needs their own healthcare concierge." Keeping up with the routine stuff now feels like a chore all its own, but I'm grateful to have baselines established in other areas of my health. I'm scheduled to head back to the gym for my first session the week of February 10, which I am really looking forward to getting back into shape, slowly but surely.

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Eternity in The Human Heart

I've given more than a passing thought in recent years, even prior to my diagnosis, about our culture's obsession with anti-aging. Make-up products, supplements, diets, workout regimens, healthcare choices, all aimed at living longer and longer. There's even a conference for the ultra-wealthy, held in Switzerland, called the Longevity Investors Conference, where an elite group of insanely wealthy people gather to discuss ways they can live longer and how they can fund the research and science to make that happen. It's private, invitation-only, and guests have to pony up tens of thousands of dollars to attend. 

It's a head-scratcher for me.

Do I want to be healthy? Yes. 

But do I really want to live longer on this planet, in this body, among this kind of brokenness? No.

This planet we tread is a mess. And this body in which I dwell is a mess. And everybody around me is a mess. We are ravaged by the results of sin. We have a conference for people who spend millions of dollars trying to live longer while there are millions of people dying from preventable diseases that cost dollars to prevent. These people dying of preventable diseases? They, too, want to live longer. But they aren't trying to make it to 120 years old; they are just hoping to make it to twenty days old, twenty months old, and twenty years old. Making it to 120 years old is unfathomable. And yet - and yet - there is something inherently ingrained in all of us that makes us long to live forever. 

Because what that conference - and our culture - puts on full display is this truth: We don't want to die early - whatever 'early' may mean. We are desperate to live longer, to live forever, and yet we can't figure out how to make that happen based on our own knowledge and our own willpower. We can't figure out how to solve the longings of our own hearts.

Famed atheist-turned-Christian-theologian, C.S. Lewis, commented in a series of letters he exchanged with Sheldon Vanauken in Vanauken's book, A Severe Mercy

C.S. Lewis asked how it was that I, as a product of a materialistic universe, was not at home there. 'Do fish complain of the sea for being wet? Or if they did, would that fact itself not strongly suggest that they had not always been, or would not always be, purely aquatic creatures?' Then, if we can complain of time and take such joy in the seemingly timeless moment, what does that suggest? It suggests that we have not always been or will not always be purely temporal creatures. It suggests that we were created for eternity. Not only are we harried by time, we seem unable, despite a thousand generations, even to get used to it. We are always amazed by it - how fast it goes, how slowly it goes, how much of it is gone. Where, we cry, has the time gone? We aren't adapted to it, not at home in it. If that is so, it may appear as proof, or at least a powerful suggestion, that eternity exists and is our home.

This desire to live forever is born from an inherent knowing that we are supposed to live forever, just not here on Planet Earth, but rather in heaven with God. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, "[God] has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end." 

That desire to live forever that wells up within you? It should point you to the heart of God. He's the one that put that desire there. It is a good and right longing, but not one you will solve on based on your own effort and willpower. You can use every anti-aging cream known to mankind, drink every version of a healthy smoothie there is, and exercise your way into oblivion. And at the end of the day, you don't get to choose how long you live. But you do get to choose where you get to live after death comes to your door. There are two options: Eternity with God in heaven, or eternity apart from God in hell. 

Look, I'm not saying we don't take care of our bodies and treat them well. They are a gift God has given us, we are to steward them well and not treat them like garbage. But as we can see first-hand, I treated my body well and did a lot of things right - ate well, slept well, drank water, worked out - and I still got cancer.

Prior to my diagnosis, I often thought I didn't care how long I lived. However long I lived, I lived. But then when the diagnosis came and suddenly the illusion of how long I lived was seemingly wrested from my control (as if I had any to start with), I found myself desperately praying that God would grant me a long life. I didn't - and still don't - know how to reconcile those two realities within me. I don't want a ridiculously long life, but I'm fearful, too, that I will die early, though. I'm not sure where that leaves me.

My friend Myrt always said she wanted to live to be 80 and then she wanted out of here. She wanted to die five minutes after her husband, Paul, so that she had enough time to tidy up after him and then head out. They had lived full lives, accomplishing everything on their shared bucket list. But Myrt did not get her wish. Paul died in 2014, and she did not pass until 2017. So, not only did she live past 80, she also did not die five minutes after Paul. She wasn't openly bitter about the circumstances and hostile toward God (that I was aware of), but she didn't shy away from expressing her occasional unhappiness over the matter.

But this is the weight of the matter - Paul did not die early, and Myrt did not die late. My friend Jonathan did not die early at thirty-one. If I die tomorrow, I will not die early at forty. 

So all those investors at the longevity conference? I don't know, maybe they will make it to 120 years old and be in perfectly good shape until their last breath, but the day will come when they will take their last breath, somehow, some way. Not a single one will be able to escape death. But if one of them drops dead at fifty? 

They will not have died early. They will have died precisely at the moment a sovereign and holy God intended they should. And no anti-aging cream or longevity conference can override him.

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Throughout this past year, I have returned countless times to the words of pastor Matt Chandler, who also happens to have a more aggressive grade of the same type of brain cancer I have, roughly the same size of tumor and same lobe of the brain. He was diagnosed fourteen years ago.

No ER For This Kind of Pain

I can feel the start of the metaphorical hemorrhaging, the spilling over of trauma into other parts of my life. I'm not sure what kind of tourniquet exists for such things. I knew I’d start seeing the emotional bleeding at some point, I just didn’t know when, where, how, or the severity of the bleeding. Donald Miller said in his book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, after the end of a significant relationship, "I knew then the shock was wearing off. A certain fear grew. They don’t have an emergency room for the kind of pain that is about to happen to me, I thought" (194). I've been to the ER for a seizure, which led to the discovery of a giant brain tumor, but there is no such ER for what I'm experiencing now.

As I approach the one-year anniversary, I feel the weight of this past year starting to catch up with me. As one friend noted from her own cancer experiences, it feels like trying to clean up an oil spill with a paper towel. Impossible. I feel the hyper vigilance taking root. So many things gets flagged as warning signals in my brain. Trauma doesn’t allow a person to differentiate in a healthy manner anymore, and I'm losing the ability to differentiate between what's safe and what isn't. So many things feel untrustworthy, a danger, to me right now. 

My own mind can’t be trusted. 

The world around me can't be trusted. 

And most of all, perhaps God cannot be trusted.

Tish Harrison Warren wrote in her stunning book Prayer in the Night

It was a gray Sunday morning when I was in college. A few months before, a three-year-old boy in our congregation had drowned. Our church was still staggered in grief as I sat listening to my pastor, Hunter, preach about trusting God. "You cannot trust God to keep bad things from happening to you," he said. I was dumbstruck . . . But Hunter's point was that God does not keep all bad things from happening to us. He cannot be trusted to do that because he never made that promise. Doing so is, apparently, not his job. Our Creator lets us remain vulnerable (22).

Doggone it.

I'd prefer it, God, if you did make it your job to never let bad things happen to me and to not leave me vulnerable.

I see the hemorrhaging playing out most tangibly right now in the physical house I dwell in, a house that's stood for over seven decades and has been in my family for four generations. I swear I hear dripping all over the place. Appliances, vents, walls, ceilings, pipes. I go around listening to all these things, and I feel like I'm slowly losing my sanity. I lost some good brain cells in the surgery, but now I feel like I’m losing my whole dang mind. Did the contractor not do his job when he replaced the siding and the roof in the last couple of years? What if there's a leak and I find it ruins my walls? What if there's something wrong in my appliances, they catch fire, and the whole place burns down?

I dwelled in a body for four decades to discover that it had been harboring a malignant brain tumor for as long as maybe two of those decades. Potentially HALF MY LIFE. No symptoms. No warning signs. Then the bottom dropped out and my world erupted. A fully-loaded freight train I never heard, never saw, and never felt coming.

What if there’s something lurking beneath the surface of my house, in its walls, in its roof, subtle symptoms I ignore, and some day I’m going to watch the whole thing come tumbling down all because I just didn’t know what I didn’t know. What if my house has its own figurative tumors? What if things go undiagnosed in my house and the whole thing falls down around me? There are no ERs for houses. There are only fire trucks and fire hydrants, to douse the flames of what's left, just like chemo and radiation are dousing the flames of what's left of my tumor.

I'm having to wrestle all over again what I believe to be true about the sovereignty of God, just like I did before my surgery last April. God already hasn't stopped bad things from happening to me, but what if there's even more around the corner, waiting, lurking? The disparity grows between my reality and my faith. 

I don’t trust God to not let bad things happen to me. 

God, help me to narrow that gap once again. Do what only you can do.

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Health Updates

I ended the pills for cycle number five this week, and it wasn't the abyss that the last cycle was, thank God. I don't know who all was pounding on heaven's door and what you said once you got there, but this round was significantly less severe than the last one. I still fought off some nausea, but no vomiting, no laying on the bathroom floor - none of that misery. I was able to eat like normal and water tasted perfectly fine. I'll see the neuro-onc again the week of January 26 to review this cycle and look ahead to when I'll start number six, which will be the halfway point!

One of my goals has been to get back to the gym. I've been talking with the owner of the gym to see about setting up times to meet with her one-on-one and slooooowly get started on some basics, build back up over time. I have no idea what my limits are any more when it comes to how long I can work out, how many reps I can do, etc. I am starting from ground zero. I keep joking with her that the scene from Apollo 13 is our inspiration. We are going to have to put this thing back together using nothing but that, meaning we are going to have to work at putting my body back together, but there are some things my body just isn't going to be able to do right now and will be eliminated as options until we know better.

The week of February 2 will mark the one-year anniversary since the first seizure, the biopsy, and confirmation of the diagnosis. I'm sure it will be a weighty week, and I have another post coming that will go with that week. Some people have asked how I'm feeling about that anniversary. I'm sure there's going to be a lot of emotions and sensitivity around it, but I feel like the anniversary of the craniotomy in April will be far more emotional because that to me is when the real chaos and the descent into the abyss started. 

I would appreciate your prayers for mental wisdom and stability as I sort through trauma. I'm making connections to a trauma counselor, but nothing firm yet. And prayers for wisdom in what I tangibly need to address in my house and what is just my brain being weird.

Comedy as Redeemed Mourning

Harrison Scott Key said in his wildly hilarious book How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told, "So much comedy is a kind of redeemed mourning, turning the dross of pain into gold, just as visiting Disney World HIS BEAUTY and HER BEAST tank tops is a kind of psychosis" (138).

I have felt that sense of comedy as redeemed mourning a lot in the last year. (Can you believe it will be one year already in February since the diagnosis?!) There was a lot of mourning, but there was also a lot of hilarity and ridiculousness, which in some ways felt irreverent at times. I felt as if I had to button it up because I had cancer, and who laughs when you have cancer? Everything just needs to be sad because that is the caricature I had in my head of what a cancer patient should look like. Bald and sad. And a permanent resident living on the bathroom floor.

So I began thinking over the more comical moments I've had here lately. Sort of my own personal version of "You know you have cancer when. . ." sort of list, but really these are the moments when I know I have brain cancer (and when I know I have friends and family who have sorted out when they, too, can safely inject some humor into the situation.) This clearly is not a portrayal of anyone else who has or has had cancer, so don't generalize what I'm saying here.

You Know You Have Brain Cancer When:

• You lose your hair to surgery and then again to radiation (but only half of it!) and then while throwing up from the chemo, think, “Well, at least no one has to be here to hold my hair back.” 
• You update your Memoji to more closely resemble the version of you that wears a beanie hat 24/7 and now needs glasses. 
• You joke with your brother that at least you managed to hit the trash can every time you threw up instead on the floor or on yourself, and he responds in a way that only a brother can with “#winning.” 
• You keep a running list of your medical claims just to see how much your insurance company has been billed, just for kicks. And you do this because you called your insurance company to see if they can provide a master report. No, no, they cannot. Not unless you need it for legal purposes, or some other reason you cannot recall. (And for the record, it's A LOT of money that has been billed to my insurance company. I'm not quite to seven figures, but we're getting there.) 
• Your friend buys you a water bottle decal of a cartoonish looking dumpster on fire with text beneath it that says, “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.” Which is a very polite way to say “Your life is a dumpster fire, but you’re doing a great job.” 
• You start a playlist in your iTunes that is simply called “The Year of Cancer.” 
• When you’ve been asked for what feels like the 9,000th time what your birthday is for verification purposes, you have fleeting thoughts of giving some alternate date, just to see how they respond.
• You’re like a toddler whose day revolves around nap time. Although, I suppose the statement could move in the geriatric direction just as easily, but let’s move in the toddler direction. 
• Your prayers consist of things like “Dear God, please don’t let me lose my lunch again today,” and your gratitude journal includes things like “Thanks, I didn’t lose my lunch today.” 
• It takes you four months to finally make it to a dinner date with friends after months of scheduling and rescheduling thanks to a body that has long since left you out of the decision-making process.  
• You have a new section in your personal library you mentally call “The Cancer Section.”
• You realize some people dream of sleeping or napping all day, but you dream of staying awake all day.
• You joke with a friend who is a paraplegic who has a shirt that says, “I’m in it for the parking.” So then when you roll up to radiation and slide into the “oncology patient” parking space, you text him a photo and say, “I’m just in it for the parking.” 
• You watch all these pharmaceutical commercials you used to laugh at, wondering why anyone would take them as the guy speed talks his way through all the possible side effects, “including death,” and now you watch them and think, “No judgment here. You go right on and take that med that includes possible nausea, vomiting, skin rashes, hair loss, deafness, blindness, heart attack, paralysis, asthma, kidney disease, heart disease, loss of all limbs, osteoporosis, hemorrhoids, curvature of the spine, stroke, and in rare cases, death.” I see you.
• You know what day it is based on your pill organizer. (But that’s only if you remembered to take your pills when you should. And if you don't do that, well, then you're just up the creek as to what day it is. Except for your phone, which also houses reminders to take your meds, and yet you still forget to take meds.)
• Your friend sends you a candle with a picture of a dog with a cone on his head with text beside it that says, "At least you don't have to wear a cone."
• You keep a daily log of symptoms in a notebook, and since you've given legally strict instructions to two of your friends to burn your real journals with all the true insights of your life when you die, those health logs will be the last documented remains of your life. So, congrats, at least the world will know if you had a bowel movement or not should you meet an abrupt demise while going through cancer treatment. 
• You seriously question the dividing line between aging and brain cancer. It doesn't really matter why you just walked into a room and can't remember what you're doing there. Just make another lap and the answer might come to you. You could use the steps anyway.
• You now understand the value of dry erase boards and dry erase markers more than you ever have before in your life. You have to write down what you need to do ten minutes from now sometimes. You even ask for some sort of shower-version of a dry-erase board for Christmas. Doesn't everyone do their best thinking in the shower? And you can't wait until you get out to write things down. No, that's far too long. You forget what you were thinking about in the amount of time it takes to squeeze shampoo in your palm.
• You think "Well, clearly when the neurosurgeon removed part of my tumor, he also apparently removed the cells that gave me the ability to back into a parking space without looking like some drunk, newly-licensed teen driver just pulled in."

Comedy. It really is a redeemed kind of mourning. So laugh away.

______________________

Health update

My most recent appointment with my neuro-oncologist was last week and we did our usual monthly lab work. My platelets took a major nose dive. The low end of normal is 150 and my platelets were down to 86, which was the lowest they've ever been in this process. We had to put further chemo temporarily on hold to see if the platelets would rebound before we could green light cycle number five. I redid lab work today and the platelets rebounded - just in a week! - to 175, which the highest they've been since July. I'll start the next round of chemo tomorrow night (But I don't take it until the evening, so I'll still be with it during the Buckeye game!) I told one friend, "Welcome to a life where perhaps whiplash is, in fact, the most common side effect."

In conversations with the doctor, we elected to maintain the higher dose of chemo, which is the same dose as last time when I was ultra-miserable for a period of a few days. I'm not a masochist, but I want to see if the same symptoms still play out or if the body adjusts in any way to the higher dose. This higher dose is ultimately the target dose and the highest I would go anyway. If it super sucks again, then we can just drop the dose back down without hampering long-term outcomes. If it does hold true, then by about Wednesday next week, I'll probably be getting reacquainted with the carpet in my bathroom closet again and water will sound absolutely awful to me. Yay for padded carpet!

__________________

Comments

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2024: The Year of Strange Joy

"Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed." 1 Peter 4:12-13

2024. You were a hit from my blindside that literally left me with a blow to the head. I feel like I've lived a lifetime in a single year. It’s been a year of shock, upheaval, and chaos at times. It’s been a year of figuring out how to live in a body that has often not felt like my own and a brain that has aged seemingly overnight. It’s been a year of moments filled with trying to fathom life beyond the next hour, let alone December 30. It’s been a year filled with moments of crying my eyes out because that’s all I felt like I had the capacity to do. It’s been a year of moments spent walking laps around my parents’ yard, practically wearing out what looks like a game trail, aiming to strengthen muscles that had forgotten how to function. It’s been a year of staring at one MRI after another, some showing large white masses and some now showing large gaping black holes. 

But it’s also been a year of financial abundance when it should have been a year of financial scarcity (turns out living with your parents can do wonders for your budget).  It's been a year of supernatural peace on the inside despite the swirling maelstrom on the outside. It's been a year of hearing God's voice more clearly despite the deafening noise of beeping monitors and the chatter of so many medical providers. 

It's been a year of strong weakness.

It's been a year of fractured hope.

It's been a year of strange joy.

Author Hannah Anderson wrote in her book Heaven and Nature Sing: 25 Advent Reflections to Bring Joy to the World, referencing the 1 Peter verses above and the stories of Mary and Simeon found in Luke 2:

This is a strange kind of joy - one that cannot be explained by sentimentality or celebration. It's the joy of an old man like Simeon, exhausted and broken by the suffering of the world, holding hope in his arms. It is the joy of a mother like Mary knowing that her child will change everything, but that she will lose him in the process. It is the joy of us who have followed this Promised Son in the way of suffering and found him faithful. It is . . . the joy of sharp pain and glorious beauty persevering together (pg. 111).

I have followed this Promised Son this year as best I know how.

And I have found that Promised Son faithful. Unimaginably so.

This cannot be explained by sentimentality or celebration. 

This can only be explained by a God who is wildly gracious, loving, and kind. But he's also a sovereign God who, in wisdom, allows trials to come our way. Trials that soften the edges of our souls. Trials that show us he is God over all we know. Trials that humble us and remind us we cannot live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from his mouth. Trials that teach us there's a story greater than ourselves being told, stories that are largely about him and not about us. Trials that refine us, leaving us more tender, more compassionate toward the world around us (most of the time anyway. There's still some goofballs out there for whom I have little compassion).

This is the joy of sharp pain and glorious beauty persevering together. 

This is the year I've witnessed strange joy up close and personal.

It turns out strange joy looks a lot like the face of Jesus.

"I've Witnessed It" by Passion, featuring Melodie Malone

When I was lost and all alone
Your presence was where I found home
You were there and You’re here right now

In every high and every low
You never left me without hope
You were good and You’re good right now

[Chorus]
I’ve witnessed Your faithfulness
I’ve seen You breathe life within
So I’ll pour out my praise again
You’re worthy, God you’re worthy of all of it
Your promises never fail
I’ve got stories I’ll live to tell
So I’ll pour out my praise again
You’re worthy, God you’re worthy of all of it

Challenge Accepted

My dad has long been a champion of my writing. He's also long been great at giving speeches and pep talks. Now, whether he would own that talent or not might be a different story, but I've been on the receiving end of quite a few of those pep talks in the last ten months and can vouch for the skill. 

 

But his speech last Christmas might be etched in my memory for years to come. 

 

Our family was gathered around my parents' living room just before Christmas - both of my brothers, their spouses, and their kids. My dad gets up to address us all, and I can already feel the tears coming. Something about my dad when he gives a speech, I immediately feel vulnerable and emotional. He starts by addressing the two youngest grandkids. He then moves on to my other nieces (my one nephew is the lone member of the male species among seven nieces, and now a great-niece was added to the mix this summer), exhorting batches of them as he moves around the room. He starts to say something to me, and then stops, points at me, and says, "I'll come back to you." We all kind of look at each other with raised eyebrows, trying to figure out what that comment was about. He then moves on to both my brothers and their wives, addressing them, offering up wisdom about life and marriage. Then he comes back to me.

 

"I have something different to say to you, Courtney. I have a challenge for you. You have a gift for words. And this is not the first time I've told you that. You know how to put words and ideas together. This time next year, I want you to come back to this family with a book of 52 devotionals, one for each week of the year."

 

The handwritten quote from Staples
in January 2024

At first I really didn't know if I could pull it off. It felt like a lot of writing to me, and I wasn't sure how to lay it all out. Do I pick a theme? Do I write ones targeted toward specific family members or stages of life? Can I really dump out that many words to fill 52 weeks' worth of devotions? How do I tie it all together so that it's not just a choppy bunch of separate entries? What would the title be? I started a note in my phone with some basic ideas that might work for entries, adding to it as ideas filled my head throughout January. I even went to Staples a few weeks before my diagnosis to get some quotes on what it would cost to get a completed product printed and bound, a copy for each family member.

 

But as it turns out, I didn't need to worry about any of that:

 

My previous post was post number 52 since I was diagnosed in February. 

 

I can assure you this was not intentional on my part. (Well, mostly not intentional. I genuinely was not paying attention to the count until about post number 48. Then I started reverse-timing things so that this one would fall around Christmas. But still.) I've been writing this whole time just for the sake of writing, not to achieve a number or to fulfill my dad's challenge. I had bigger fish to fry. After the diagnosis, I had so many things rolling around in my head, and it all needed somewhere to go. And all those words came effortlessly, entry after entry. All 52 of them.

 

When my dad issued that challenge at Christmas last year, neither he nor anyone else could ever have imagined the form those "devotionals" would take. They would take the form of updates on my cancer, reminding my family that their daughter/sister/aunt/niece/cousin was still here - alive. It would take the form of reflections on the sovereignty and faithfulness of God. It would sometimes come in the form of silence as I took a break from the frantic pace of existence. 

So, to my family: I pray these "devotionals" have been an encouragement to you. Perhaps in the sovereignty of God, I wonder if maybe these posts have really been for you all along. Everyone else reading them have just been beneficiaries of a plan that had nothing to do with their edification or encouragement, but yours. 

 

Yes, they have come at a price - for all of us, not just me. But maybe these were words you each needed to hear in some form or fashion.

 

I couldn't have weathered these recent months without each of you. 

 

To Mom and Dad, at 60-something years old and retired, you found yourselves with a new roommate in the form of your nearly-40-year old daughter, freshly minted with a brain cancer diagnosis. You served as my Uber drivers, my chefs, my mail checkers, my lawn care takers, and my hand holders when I had a seizure. You took me to nearly every single medical appointment, learning medical terms you never imagined you'd have to learn (oligodendroglioma, anyone?). I know you'd say it was no sacrifice and you'd gladly do it no matter what, but I know these have not been easy days and months.

 

To my brothers, my sisters-in-law, my nieces, and lone nephew, you all have played a role in my story, no matter how big or small. You have gathered around my deepest pain, wrapping me in your arms and in your prayers. Your presence and patience have mattered deeply to me as I sorted out life with a new version of my body and my brain.

 

So, Pops, challenge accepted. 

 

But do you think maybe we could skip out on any challenges for 2025?

_____________________

Functional updates
I'll try to carve out space in each post to provide updates on where I am in the process. So, if you're just here for the nuts and bolts, in the future you can slide straight here to the bottom and skip my idle wanderings above.

Since I last gave an update in November, I started round four of chemo, which is now winding down. (The goal is to do twelve total rounds.) This was also the first round that we opted to raise the dose of chemo, which is the max amount I can take because of my physical size (For those who saw me before all this started: If you thought I was tiny then, shave off another fifteen pounds, which is how much I've lost since April.)

The beginning of this cycle was by far the worst I've felt since starting chemo. It was down right miserable. At one point, I just found myself laying in the bathroom closet, which was near enough to the toilet but still on warmer carpet instead of cold tile. Nausea, vomiting, lots of sleeping, all of it. Even the taste of water made me want to gag. Nothing will top how miserable I felt post-surgery in April, but this was a close second. I struggled to eat because nothing sounded good, and drinking enough fluids was also a challenge. Things started to head down hill on the evening of day four and by day six, I was totally out of commission. (I take the pills only on days 1-5 of a 28-day cycle, and it seems to be trending that day six is a real whopper.) By day ten, I felt right as rain and then have had no issues since then. So, thankfully, the misery was not prolonged, but I'd still prefer it didn't happen at all. I'll see the neuro-oncologist again the first week of January to see what my blood counts are looking like and what the dosage will be for cycle number five.

I was thrilled to find another provider outside of my current healthcare system who focuses on a more holistic perspective than what my traditional providers offer. She was able to refer me out to a functional nutritionist and a functional medicine provider. They are not available until April and May, but I still booked them and asked to be put on the cancellation list should a slot become available sooner. I am a strong proponent of functional medicine, so I was glad to find this missing piece to my healthcare team who works in both the functional medicine space and oncology.

I also scheduled a neuro-psych test, which lasts four hours and will establish some baseline cognitive functioning abilities like short-term memory. We can then use this data in the years ahead for comparison. That originally scheduled out until June, but a slot opened up in March. 

One significant area that continues to be impacted by all of this is my ability to go to church anywhere. The combo of my seizure meds and the chemo still cause me to get drowsy in the mornings, making it impossible to go to church anywhere that doesn't have a service outside of the usual Sunday mornings. I haven't been to church on a Sunday morning since May, which was pre-chemo and pre-naps. I did make it to the Christmas service, but that was at 6:00 at night. I'm on the hunt for somewhere that either has a Saturday evening service or a later Sunday service. But even if that happens, I still have some sensory issues when there's a lot I have to take in visually and hearing-wise. I'm continuing to pray that God would lead me in this area to where I need to be.

All in all, I continue to be so humbled and in awe of God's faithful protection and provision through this process. Yes, even on the miserable days. Thank you to everyone for their continued prayers and support.

Seeing Until We See No More

I've been thinking about Moses a lot recently, particularly how he died. There are some peculiar tidbits in the Bible about the matter, as it says that God buried him and didn't bother telling anybody where he was buried. Apparently God felt it was nobody's business where he buried his friend, "And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in Moab, as the Lord had said. He buried him in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is" (Deuteronomy 34:5-6). Being in command of the universe, I suppose God's entitled to do such mysterious things. (I've also heard he's a big fan of doing the opposite, resurrecting a body from a grave and then spilling the beans, telling everybody to not even bother looking for the grave because it doesn't really matter, the body won't be there anyway. Strange being, this God.)

The Bible also notes that while Moses had gone to great lengths to set the Israelites free from slavery under Pharaoh and lead them to the Promised Land, he would not be permitted to enter the land himself because he "broke faith" with God, violating the commands God had set forth for Moses (Deuteronomy 32:48-52).

I can't help but wonder if God had handed Moses a supernatural version of a View Master (remember those things?) and had him click back through images of his life:

A baby in a basket in the Nile.

Click.

Growing up in Pharaoh's palace.

Click.

The burning bush.

Click.

Staffs into snakes.

Click.

Piles of frogs.

Click.

Blood on door frames.

Click.

Parted waters.

Click. Click. Click. ClickClickClickClickClickClickClickClick.

Hundreds, thousands, of images spanning his life rapidly going by. (He's obviously changing out cartridges regularly. Although, this is a supernatural View Master, so maybe not.)

And with each passing image, he's getting closer and closer to the end of his life.

And what are the final images he clicks through?

Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. There the Lord showed him the whole land—from Gilead to Dan, all of Naphtali, the territory of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Mediterranean Sea, the Negev and the whole region from the Valley of Jericho, the City of Palms, as far as Zoar (Deuteronomy 34:1-3).

Gilead.

Click.

Dan.

Click.

Naphtali.

Click.

All of the Promised Land.

And with one last slow press and release of the lever, Moses saw all that he needed to see. All of the images of his life culminated in this one final view of the Promised Land. The Master of it all removed the View Master from the hands of his friend. No more clicking. No more images. And just like that, Moses was gone. God had faithfully sustained Moses until he saw all that he needed to see. Better yet, all that God wanted him to see. And he let Moses see it in all its fullness: "And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in Moab, as the Lord had said. Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone" (Deuteronomy 34:5, 7). Moses wasn't seeing the Promised Land through a haze of cataracts and near-blindness. His eyes were not weak, it says. He saw it in all its glory, from end to end, valley to valley, sea to sea, with eyes that God created and sustained, and then ordained at a precise moment, and not a moment before, that they should see no more. 

And with that, the slide show was over for Moses.

But wait! It looks like there's one more slide. 

But there's no image.

But Moses knows. He knows what's on that image. He knows he has eyes to see what's on that slide.

Moses saw him who is invisible.

". . . he persevered because he saw him who is invisible" (Hebrews 11:27).

Moses' final view wasn't a view of the Promised Land. 

It was a view of the Promised One.

"The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation" (Colossians 1:15).

"For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse" (Romans 1:20).

Jesus. The image of the invisible God.

Click.

"But blessed are your eyes because they see . . ." (Matthew 11:16).

Prayers for a Man That May Not Exist

Today marks ten months since my first seizure and the discovery of my brain tumor. A lot has happened in those ten months. A lot. You all have been witnesses to that, whether up close or from afar.

When I look to the past months or to the yet-unknown future months and years, you know what strikes a nerve faster than anything else and immediately brings tears to my eyes at just the thought? (I mean, I just moved the box of tissues closer to me, and there's already a small pile of snotty ones next to that because those tears are already in full swing). It's a question I have asked myself often in these months:

Who is going to want to marry a girl who has cancer for the rest of her life? Who is going to want to live with that kind of uncertainty in his spouse?

It brings tears to my eyes and feels so tender and vulnerable just to write it out, to put it before this small corner of the world that reads these words. 

I remember going to an online support group shortly after the April surgery. I really wasn't sure what to expect. There were maybe 30-40 people. All ages, all different brain cancers, all different stages in their diagnosis and treatment process. As I logged off, I was hit with a startling realization, which at the time included some mental expletives, which I will refrain from using here. I realized I had adopted a short-term view of the circumstances - Just get through the next 14 months, then I'll be done and can move on with life - but where the mental expletives came into play is when I realized this isn't just about the next 14 months.

This is about the rest of my life.

Regular scans to check for any growth or changes, regular check ups with a neuro-oncologist, moments left wondering whether an ailment or symptom really means something more significant is brewing beneath the surface. 

Who is going to want to marry a girl who has cancer for the rest of her life?

As I was driving home from work today, I was reflecting on all that has happened these last ten months. I was also listening to a sermon preached by Louie Giglio back on December 26, 2013. (For you Apple folks, you can find it here.) I've listened to this sermon (it's the third part in a series of three messages) probably every year during Advent since he first preached it eleven years ago. His words have always resonated. But today? They landed differently today. He talks about trials in this life. We know Jesus the Messiah came once and we know he is coming again, but in the middle there's waiting and trials. There's a key statement he makes that helped tremendously in answering my own question about an unknown future husband: 

God is not primarily interested today in making our lives easier. 

He's primarily interested today in making our lives matter.

I realized something in that moment, not for the first time, however: 

I want my life to matter more than I want to be married.  

I'll be okay if I never have a husband, but I won't be okay if I don't have Jesus.   

I don't know if God will so ordain in his wisdom that a man should come along and answer my question and say, "Me. I'm the one who will take the girl with cancer for the rest of her life." 

But should God choose to send such a member of the male species along, then I do have a three specific things I am praying for the guy that decides to answer that question in the affirmative because I want his life to matter, too:

I pray he is a man of God's Word. This is my chief prayer. I want him to love the Bible. (And I want to be a woman who loves the Bible, too.) He doesn't need to be a scholar or a theologian. (I'm a seminary dropout myself.) He doesn't need to have memorized the entire book of Colossians or James or Ephesians (I can barely remember what I did two seconds ago, so I'm in no place to judge), but I want him to be a man in love with the Word of God, someone who is familiar with it, well-acquainted with its pages. I want to know that the man I'm with is actively moving toward the Word with regularity and intentionality, choosing to wrap his life in its pages.

I pray he is a man of his word. I want him to be the kind of man who keeps his promises. I want him to be the kind of man who shows up when he says he's going to show up, the kind of man who honors his commitments, whether big or small, come hell or high water. The kind of man who is going to sit with me in appointments and take me to regular scans. Again, I'm not seeking perfection, but I want someone who is faithful to his promises. 

I pray he is a man of words. Allow me to state the obvious: I love words. They matter a great deal to me. Words are in my nature. I have kept journals for the last twenty-seven years, and have had this blog for nearly sixteen years. I haven't been penning all these words because I thought somebody would read them or because I was trying to build a brand or a platform or make a name for myself. Writing and reading represent some of the deepest parts of my identity. I pray the man I marry would at the very least have an appreciation for words (I'm not saying I want him to be a chatty Cathy, though, either. I know, picky, picky.) He doesn't need to be a bookworm or a bibliophile or the world's greatest writer of love letters. (Although, I would certainly relish it if he were the world's greatest writer of love letters).

I can't see into the future (thank God because I think if I had seen brain cancer coming I would have likely opted out) to know if there is someone to answer the question that is so tender to my heart these days, but even if there isn't, I will still say that I want my life to matter more than I want to be married.

I'll be okay if I never have a husband, but I won't be okay if I don't have Jesus. 

I want my life to matter. And that can happen with or without a husband. 

But it can't happen without Jesus.