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. 

Leaving and Staying

Before I bought my grandmother's house in 2022, I had moved four times in five years. When I moved into the house, I had no plans of buying it, but over time one of the chief reasons I decided to buy was because I was sick of putting my life in boxes and asking friends and family to help me haul things around the city. I had moved in September 2017, June 2019, December 2020, and then finally into my grandmother's house in December 2021. I joked with my parents shortly after I formally purchased the house in June 2022 that they could just bury me in the backyard someday because I was never moving again.

This is a radical change from how I spent virtually all of my college and young adult years. It was then that I did the bulk of my traveling and leaving. If my memory serves me correctly, before I left for college, I had been on a plane precisely two times—to and from Alaska with my parents and grandmother in the summer of 2002. But during and after college, I lived to be on the go. I dreaded the thought of being in one place for too long. I was terrified of getting ‘stuck.’ So, I just stayed in perpetual motion, the restlessness a raging force in my life: Missouri, Russia, San Diego, North Carolina, Kenya (twice!), Guatemala. And, of course, I picked up friends from these places along the way, who were also coming from other parts of the country, so then I’d go back to visit them, or we’d meet up somewhere. Missouri was the longest stint, living out there six out of seven years while I finished both undergrad and grad school. It was an interesting sensation when I watched the movie Up In the Air—which was filmed primarily in the St. Louis airport and was the airport I flew in and out of while I lived in Missouri—and essentially knew which terminal almost all the airport scenes were filmed.

Then it seemed that when I hit my thirties, I discovered a figurative set of brakes, or at least how to pump them. Life slowed down, and the restless tug grew quieter and quieter. The last time I went overseas was when I was twenty-nine. The desire to leave the country seemingly vanished, and I set my sights on more domestic longings. I was thirty-one when I went to Jackson Hole for the first time in 2015. And then I went again, and again, and again. Once I discovered Jackson, I had little interest in going elsewhere. There were still a few places I would go on vacation to with family, but by and large, Jackson ruled the roost for me.

Now, in my forties, I prefer to just leave my life car in park altogether, especially after these last two years. I feel Nate Bargatze's clip on how he moved through the first half of his life deep in my bones because it's so on point. It reflects all too well my own progression from my twenties to my thirties and now my forties. For those in their fifties and beyond, feel free to to extend Nate's observations and weigh in on what the possibilities could be for my future decades.

As I've been looking back on each of these decades recently and all the moving I did, I am often reminded of how the Israelites moved about after they came out of slavery in Egypt. I recently started attending a new church over the last several months, and it has already become dear to me in a very short amount of time. The pastor decided over three years ago to preach through the entirety of the Bible, verse by verse, beginning with Genesis 1. He just reached the fourth book of the Bible, Numbers, when I arrived in October.

The book of Numbers follows the Hebrew people in the days and months immediately following their freedom from Egypt and slavery. They have crossed the Red Sea and are now in the desert. God is giving them the purity laws, explaining to them the ways in which they are to conduct themselves as his chosen people. He’s also explaining to them how to lay out their camp according to the tribes, with the tabernacle at the center of all they do. He chooses a cloud to indicate his presence, which is perpetually present, serving as an indicator of God's continual presence with his people. If the cloud moved, the people of God were to move. It didn’t matter how long or short they had been in camp; they moved when God moved.

Think about this: over one million people were living in tents, and all their worldly possessions with them, including their livestock. Every time they moved, they had to pack their clothes, gather their herds, families, and all that they had plundered from the Egyptians (with God's permission!), pull up tent stakes, pack up the tents, and move. And then, when they arrived at wherever it was God intended they should go, they did everything in reverse order. Sometimes they moved multiple times within a week; sometimes, maybe once a year. But they did this countless times—for forty years. Packing, leaving, unpacking, staying. Packing, leaving, unpacking, staying. Wash, rinse, repeat, over and over and over again. Numbers 9:18, 22-23 explains:

At the command of the Lord the people of Israel set out, and at the command of the Lord they camped. As long as the cloud rested over the tabernacle, they remained in camp. Whether it was two days, or a month, or a longer time that the cloud continued over the tabernacle, abiding there, the people of Israel remained in camp and did not set out; but when it lifted, they set out. At the command of the Lord they camped, and at the command of the Lord they set out. They kept the charge of the Lord at the command of the Lord by Moses.

I can’t fathom that kind of nomadic lifestyle. What if they didn’t want to move? What if they liked that particular piece of ground? What if someone in their family physically didn’t feel well and traveling was difficult?

It didn’t matter if they didn’t want to, didn’t feel well, or were tired. What mattered above all else was the presence of God. They moved when God moved. And if he wasn’t moving, then they weren’t moving either. I wonder what I would have done if I were among the Israelites. Would I have become bitter over what felt like such a grueling exercise in futility and inefficiency? Or would have there have been any part of me that would have appreciated the process or been grateful, beholding the wonder that was the presence of God himself in a cloud? Would I have been asking God why he couldn't just get us to our destination in a single trip? 

There's a lot of things God was teaching the Israelites through the use of the cloud, but one of which was to see that the staying and leaving both mattered, for however long. God was teaching them to be tuned to his presence above all else—above their own preferences, above their own wellbeing, and above their own longings. Because whether staying or going, it meant proximity to the presence of God and it was proof that they were a people marked, sheltered, and protected by God himself. Moses, the leader of this mass of nomadic people, said in Exodus 33:15-16 explained why the presence of God mattered so much, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”

Moses was desperately pleading with God to not send them somewhere that God himself would not go with them, for who were the Israelites if Immanuel, which literally translates not just to the "God Who is With Us," but to "the With-Us God", did, in fact, not go with them? What was going to set them apart from everyone else on the face of the earth? It would be meaningless for them to go anywhere that God was not, and Moses inherently knew this. The Promised Land was a meaningless promise if God did not go with them.

I hope God physically doesn't move me again anytime soon, but I want to be where the With-Us God is, attentive to his Holy Spirit and his workings. And I'm not just talking about whether I continue to live in this house or not. It can also mean other spaces and categories. I don't want to be in a job where he isn't. I don't want to be in a friendship where he isn't. I don't want to be in a conversation where he isn't. Yes, I understand that we as believers who live under the power of the New Covenant do not live like the Old Covenant Israelites where God did not dwell in them. I have the power of the Living God in and with me at all times. So, I don't actually need to ask God to be with me like Moses did, but I do still have to be aware of his Holy Spirit. I often pray Galatians 5:25, that I would keep in step with the Spirit. If he moves, I want to move with him. If he's telling me to pull up stakes, then I'm pulling up stakes. If he's telling me to write something specific, then I'm writing something specific. If he's telling me to text a particular person with a particular encouragement, I'm texting. From the big to the small, I want to be where he is. For how else will anyone know that I belong to him? I want to go where the cloud of his presence goes, leaving and staying when he leaves and when he stays.

Who knows what the remainder of my forties look like, but I hope that no matter what decade I'm in that I'm moving wherever the presence of God is, even if I do have to pack up boxes. Again.

Health update

Treatment already feels like it was some sort of dark, distant nightmare, even thought it's only been four months since I took my last chemo pill. I don't know what it is exactly about the latter half of 2025, but it seems like somebody punched the light speed on humanity's collective Millennium Falcon, sending us all hurtling into space with entire galaxies whizzing by like long streams of thin white lines. And it seems as though everyone else has been feeling the same way, not just me.

I had my first post-treatment MRI last week and then met with the neuro-onc immediately after. The tumor is stable and shows no signs of growth, which is the hope for every MRI moving forward. Generally speaking, as soon as treatment was over, I didn't have any lingering symptoms other than some blood count issues. I had been working with a functional medicine nurse and nutritionist prior to treatment ending with the express intent of getting things in place so that my body would rebound well from the hits it took during treatment. And that seems to have happened. All things considered, it's a miracle that I am doing as well as I am neurologically and functionally. 

My next MRI should have been scheduled for February at the standard three month mark, but the doctor felt I was doing so well that we could go ahead and extend the interval out to April, which is good news. I still have a smattering of appointments between now and then, most of which are just routine care and check ins with other specialists. All in all, I am doing well, by the goodness and grace of God!

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.

Mirror, Mirror, on the Page

I travel many a road when it comes to my reading moods. The year started with a leisurely stroll into theology (Reforesting Faith: What Trees Teach Us About the Nature of God and His Love for Us by Matthew Sleeth). From there, I meandered over to the memoirs (Surprised by Oxford by Carolyn Weber). I then hopped over historical fiction (Becoming Mrs. Lewis by Patti Callahan). I made a pit stop over to romantic suspense (One Wrong Move by Dani Pettrey), only to discover I had actually already read that one. Only a few pages in, I thought to myself, "Waaaait a minute. This feels vaguely familiar to me." Right, well, when you've already read it, yes, it should feel familiar. Although, I do have a brain tumor, so I pulled the cancer card with myself on that one and let myself off the hook. I still re-read the book as a refresher, knowing the next book in the series was about to be released.

Even now at the young age of forty, maybe I need to pull a Dan Pelzer move and start a log of every book I read. However, thanks to the wonders of technology, my library account does now maintain a 'reading history' for me. I wouldn't have recalled even the short list above if I hadn't referred to that.

Amid the highways and byways of the bookshelves, I managed to find myself reading an autobiography this summer, a task that felt equivalent to a long-haul trucking assignment, crossing state lines, aiming to get from one end to the other in a timely manner. I started it in July, thinking I'd have it done by the time I finished treatment, which was earlier this month. The entire collection is roughly nineteen volumes. I'm working on volume fifteen, so my goal of finishing by the end of treatment obviously did not happen. 

Autobiographies can be hefty reads just because they span an entire life, unlike memoirs that capture a limited point in time and are more digestible. Autobiographies can also be boring at times, tedious even, which makes it hard to push through them (see also Open by Andre Agassi. I attempted to read that earlier this year and abandoned the cause because it was, in fact, a slog, and I could not maintain the energy or desire to finish. What the author cares about may not always be what the reader cares about, and I did not care about tennis.)

It can also be disorienting at times to read everything in first-person, when you are up close and personal with the author's thoughts, behaviors, and perspectives. Maybe you cringe a little. Maybe you laugh a little. Maybe you cry a little. Maybe you disagree a little. You run the gamut of emotions with the author. You get a glimpse into their past, where you find places that maybe are less than glamorous, places that maybe the wider world was unaware of until the person disclosed it on their own terms, in their own words. And you see how that past shaped their present, bringing them to whatever moment in their life they find themselves at the point of publication.

Wondering what the title is and who the author is that I've been trying to make my way through for nearly three months now?

Untitled by Courtney.

I've been reading my own story.

In my own words. 

Page after page.

Volume after volume.

Year after year.

I've kept a journal since January 2, 1997. I was twelve at the time and in the sixth grade. I have nineteen full journals, twenty-one if you count the two bonus ones that I mailed back and forth with friends (those are tagged as volumes 2.1 and 4.1). All of them are stored between three waterproof and fireproof safes and are my most-prized possessions. I would be so grieved if something happened to them, and someone else would be grieved if they broke into my house, thinking they hit the jackpot with three safes, only to find them filled with paper and ink rather than jewels and money.

Ah, the resolutions of my twelve-year-old self.
Clearly my priorities were the welfare of my pets 
(Bud, Maggie, and the fish), and improving my hygiene.

There is at least one entry, typically far more, from every single year since 1997. Almost twenty-nine years of documenting my life. The longest period of time a single journal covers is six years and three months. The shortest one spans a mere four months. I'll never know for certain how many words total I've written but I wouldn't be surprised if it was in the vicinity of half a million words or more.

This isn't the first time I've re-read my own words. I've done it multiple times in the past, and the last go-round was in late 2021. But even since then, I've filled three more journals and working on my fourth. So, every time I do a read through, it is taking me longer and longer to do so. I decided the next time I do it, I'm simply going to read the most recent five years.

What was so astounding to me in this particular re-reading saga, however, was a theme I hadn't really picked up on before. Or if I did, I have no memory of it. (But this is a prime example of why I re-read them - God shows me something new every single time I re-read my journals, some new way he was faithful to me that maybe I had forgotten about and of which I needed to be reminded.) I would get through certain years, especially my high school and college years, and I would be horrified and convicted about how I spoke to myself through those pages. The words I documented reflected my own thoughts, which were primarily thoughts about all the things I "should" have done differently. 

I should have been more loving . . . 

I should have known how to do that . . . 

I should have said this instead of that . . . 

I should love God better . . . 

I should lead better . . . 

I should work harder . . . 

I should try harder . . . 

I should, I should, I should.

Mounds upon mounds of self-condemnation and self-loathing, seemingly chased by a constant sense of failure. It was never explicit, like saying, "I hate myself," but the meaning was there nonetheless, just masquerading as a girl and a woman trying to hold it all together, all the time. It both angered and grieved me all at once. My boss joked with me once, "Court, you've fired yourself a dozen times over from this job. Quit being so hard on yourself."

Even I got sick of reading my own thoughts after while. It all just felt gross, like, "Dang, girl, grant yourself some grace and space to not be perfect." The more I read, the harder it got to continue through the years.

But there came a point when I felt this thought, this conviction from the Holy Spirit, arrive deep in my gut, "This is how you talk to yourself every day." It was as if I was seeing my own self mirrored back to me in a way that I had perhaps always known about, but was reminded of in a startling and stark way.

Mirror, mirror, on the page.

We all face this dilemma, the lies we believe about ourselves. Maybe your lies sound different than mine, and maybe yours aren't documented between the college-lined pages of journals, but they are there in your heart and mind, nonetheless. You are a sinner just like me, and as such, we are all easy prey for the devil's schemes. Satan is the father of lies (John 8:44), after all, and the implications of living in a broken, sinful world, is that we are readily deceived by his accusations. 

So, when we look in this mirror, the question becomes not who is the fairest of us all, but will truth or lies win when the Accuser comes for us?

Mirror, mirror, on the page, will truth or lies win this war we wage?

John the Baptist, the prophet sent prior to Jesus to point people to Jesus, also points us to the way in which we answer this question for ourselves. The Jews and the Jewish leaders of the day kept asking him who he was. Was he Elijah? Was he the Prophet? Was he the Messiah? John denied all of those identities.

Finally they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”

John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord’” (John 1:22-23).

Did you notice what transpired there? They asked, "What do you say about your own identity?" They handed him their mirror and said, "Tell us who you are when you look into this mirror."  

John, instead, did the exact opposite. He picked up a different mirror and answered with the mirror of the Word of God, from the pages of Scripture, "John replied in the words of Isaiah . . ." It was the words of the Old Testament that told John who he was, what his identity was, what the truth was. The mirror the people handed him was worthless because it would have been built on lies and their own wishes of who they wanted John to be. The Word of God was the only place John knew the truth would rest.

It is the only place we can rest when we seek to determine who we are. It won't come from those around us. It won't come from our spouses, our kids, our friends, our employers, or our social media feed. It won't even come from within ourselves. We are far too easily deceived. When we find ourselves picking up the wrong mirror, one filled with lies, let us pick up the mirror that tells us the truth - always - the Word of God.

Mirror, mirror, on God's page, only your truth can win this war we wage.

May we all start looking in the right mirror, one filled with truth and not lies.

Fed by the Unexpected

Every morning around 7:30 a.m., they start descending, as if controlled by an air traffic control tower somewhere in the skies above, unseen by us earthlings. Like unruly, feathered teenagers, they poke and pester, sometimes awkwardly crash-landing on top of one another, as if they didn't even see that their intended landing spot was another member of their own species—an equally large, dark, gangly bird. They line my fence row so closely together that I can barely make out one from another. I need binoculars for my own backyard, it turns out.

I have inadvertently become a birdwatcher in recent months.

A vulture-watcher, to be precise.

I stand at my kitchen window every morning, eating breakfast and counting buzzards. If anybody wonders what I do with my life as a single, 40-year-old woman recovering from cancer treatment: I watch buzzards, and I count them. I also take lots of photos and videos of them, and I text updates to anybody who cares to know what the latest count is at Buzzard Landing, as I occasionally call it. Even if they don't care to know, I text them. If someone were to scroll through the photos on my phone, they would have serious concerns about the state of affairs in my life because I have a lot of photos and videos of a) buzzards, b) random body parts from this past year that show odd side effects like rashes, bruises, and wounds that won't heal, c) my head, showing the progression of my hair growth, and d) MRI scans that show a giant black hole in my brain. Once they see the MRIs, they might be like, "Ohhhh, well that explains a lot."

Most days there are about twenty to thirty vultures gathered. We topped out at forty-one one day and then forty-five a few days later, but those were just the ones I could see in my own yard. Who knows how many more were in the neighbors' yards to my right and left.

I don't know how my yard came to be the yard of choice for these ugly-as-sin birds. Has anyone else's yard in town become home to this "venue" of vultures? (I'm learning a lot about vultures these days, as you might guess.) There are no carcasses for them to feast upon, and it's not near the road for them to pick up roadkill of any kind. Although I have long wished they were birds of prey rather than scavengers, as I'd like them to take care of my groundhog situation. They just perch in some old, scraggly trees at the back of the property, occasionally fanning their wings out to dry. (I also learned they do not have water-repellent wings, so they basically have to hang them out to dry by fanning them out in the sun. Oh, the things I have Googled in the recent past about vultures.)

I used to count them every day but then gave up the habit because usually the answer is quite simply that there are a lot of them.

They tend to depart by 10:30 a.m. and are gone for the day. A few might return in the evening, but never in the quantities I see in the morning. 

But every morning, there they are, hanging out. And every morning, there I am, watching them hang out.

I have oddly grown fond of them, as they have become a symbol of God's provision in my life.

In the story of Elijah, found in 1 Kings 17, we find that Elijah the prophet has been sent by God to declare to Ahab, the king of Israel, judgment on the nation: no rain or dew for the next three years except at Elijah's word. From there, God sends Elijah to Kerith, a place whose precise location is unknown in modern times:

Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah: "Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. You will drink from the brook, and I have directed the ravens to supply you with food there." So he did what the Lord had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook (1 Kings 17:2-6). 

Ravens. 

Bringing provision. 

Every morning and every evening.

This unlikely creature provided precisely what Elijah needed to survive in a landscape headed for rock-hard ground in just a matter of time. Bible teacherPriscilla Shirer shared in her study Elijah how ravens were truly a surprising pick for the daily duty. They are restless, greedy, and indiscriminate creatures. They are not apt to stay in one place for long, and by Jewish law, they are deemed "unclean." 

Surely God could have chosen another, more majestic, 'clean,' bird for the job.

But he didn't. 

He chose the unexpected, the less desirable, the unwanted, the unlovely—the raven, of all things.

During one of the many mornings I have spent watching these silly birds recently, I wondered, "Perhaps these vultures are my ravens, daily reminders of God's provision for me?"

Perhaps these unattractive, awkward vultures are to serve as a reminder of God's provision for me—a reminder that every morning, every evening, and every moment in between, he is mindful of my needs. As I stand there eating breakfast (which, for the record, was not provided by the vultures), he is mindful of my needs. As I stand there washing dishes, he is mindful of my needs. As I work, he is mindful of my needs. As I sleep, he is mindful of my needs. As I am in the doctor's office, he is mindful of my needs. It's just that maybe those needs aren't met in a manner or form in which I expect because I'm too busy looking for eagles or hawks, different doctors or a different body.

Author Lysa Terkeurst offers up this reminder in her book Forgiving What You Can't Forget:

When Jesus taught us what to pray each day, his first request was for daily bread. But isn't it true that bread took on many different forms in the Bible? Sometimes it looks like a loaf from the oven (Leviticus 2:4), other times like manna from heaven (Deuteronomy 8:3), or best of all like Jesus who declared himself as the bread of life (John 6:35) . . . All three are God's perfect provision. But with our human eyes, we could probably only recognize the loaf as good and most fitting, and what a tragedy that would be. We may be crying because nothing looks like a loaf while we have manna all around us, or even better, Jesus himself (160-161).

Are there things in our lives where we are butting up against God and his timing or his provision because it's not arriving in the manner or form we expect it to? Are we so busy looking for some other form of God's provision than what is right in front of us, even if it is unlovely or unwanted? 

We go looking for a loaf when he sends us manna. 

We go looking for eagles when he sends us vultures.

We go looking for some other person when he sends us Jesus Christ himself.

Let us not dismiss whatever God has placed before us as provision, no matter what season of life we find ourselves. May he cover us with his feathers and hide us in the shadow of his wings (Psalm 36:7), even as he sends us vultures by the dozens. What a tragedy it would be to be blind to his perfect provisions.

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.

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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.