New Normal.

There are actually some hours these days when I forget that I have stage 4 brain cancer. I am beginning to look like myself again. There was a time I didn't recognize me. My hair is all back and I have lost the "steroid ten." Very shortly it will be the one year out from a hot July day that changed our lives. I will say "had" cancer though there is no cure. But I have a Healer in Jesus and one way or the other I will be healed. I am finding the fear less present as I release my grip on what I falsely think is mine.

I am seeking to conquer my anxiety around IV Avastin with gratitude, and a sense of humor. I have a strict rule forbidding my mind to swim around in it's murky and treacherous side effect waters. Though each time I wonder if we'll get a good vein, I accept it. My veins are deteriorating but I still am not ready for a port. We have twenty four treatments total at least. I am on nine this Friday, so the port option is in arms reach if so needed.

Depression , my old friend, has crept up slowly over the last few months. I find it hard to get out of bed in the mornings. I do have to feed and take out Big Puppy (Reuben's rap name) and often find myself crawling back to bed after making myself eat a bowl of cereal. I come from a family of doers, so at times I can feel rather useless and full of regret when the Lord finally gets me up at 10 or 11 in the morning. This is a matter of changing how I think and remembering I am not what I do or what I do not do. This is also a releasing and confessing that I often get my contentment out of how much I accomplished rather than from my relationship with God. You can imagine after eight months of battling brain cancer the accomplishment idol has created a lot of guilt and restlessness in me. I have to work hard at letting my eyes linger on the cross of Christ and allow Him to tell me who I am.



I started painting again, having sold everything. I am thankful, yet struggling in some ways that all the work that comprised the first of the New Mythology series are gone. Each of them is deeply embedded in my psyche....... those characters are still alive and eager to be made anew....
I began a series of portraits from the New Mythology War of Birds. Now if I can just wrestle through and get to the easel.

Please ray with me and Craig for the work He has placed before us. For my struggle with depression and Avastin and for complete healing. But above all pray that Christ would be glorified through all these and through us.

The May Schedule:

Official post-Gamma Knife MRI is May 3rd

Avastin May 4th

D.C. Race for Hope May 6th (you can still join our team...:)

Back to Duke on May 8th

We meet with my surgeon, Dr Poffenbarger May 11th.

Avastin May 18


"He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him.

He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything.

For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven."

Colossians 1