What type of tumor is it? What is the official diagnosis?
It is a brain tumor. One with no known cure… yet.
When people ask these questions, they’re usually coming from a place of care, concern, or simple curiosity—not judgment.
We don’t say the name publicly, and we don’t say it out loud much either. Not because we’re in denial, but because we didn’t want our daughters, family, or friends to immediately search it online and lose hope for our girl.
Research papers and statistics take years to catch up. Clinical trials take years to accumulate enough data to publish. Even the trial our daughter is on right now has children who are thriving, yet their stories are rarely the ones you find when you search. The stories of hope. The evidence that doctors, nurses, scientists, and researchers are working tirelessly to find a cure. Those stories are much harder to come by.
She was 10 years and 10 months old when she was diagnosed. She is 13½ now.
In that time, a child changes so much—physically, mentally, emotionally. Protecting her and her sisters from the darkest statistics wasn’t about avoiding reality. It was about preserving hope.
The girls know that my mind naturally goes to worst-case scenarios. So when I told them, “Do not look this up online,” they understood I was trying to protect them.
The other side of it is our faith.
Our faith is not in statistics. It is not in medical technology. Our faith is in the One we believe formed us from dust and breathed life into us.
We believe God uses doctors, nurses, scientists, researchers—everyone—to help fulfill His purpose. One of our most frequent prayers is:
“Please God, speak directly to the doctors and every person working on this trial. Remove any barriers that keep them from hearing You. Reveal the missing link to a cure for all of these children. In the name of Jesus, Amen.”
After diagnosis, I spent a lot of time studying what the Bible says about authority—the authority God gives us and the authority we surrender.
One verse that stayed with me was Proverbs 18:21: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.”
Another was Isaiah 41:10: Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.
Those verses became anchors for me. Not because they guaranteed an outcome, but because they reminded me where to place my focus—in faith instead of fear, in life instead of defeat.
Maybe this sounds a little crazy, and my daughter certainly thinks so when I correct her wording, but words matter to me. I don’t want to speak defeat over her or define her by a diagnosis.
I don’t want to give this disease authority over her life.
We don’t say she has cancer. We say she is battling cancer.
Every single day we pray for healing. We pray that God removes every cancer cell, restores every healthy cell, and reveals a tumor-free MRI.
Every. Single. Day.
And we pray with faith that He will, in His timing.
Though if I’m being honest, I’ve shared with Him more than once that my timing is a little faster than His.
So while we wait, I try to find purpose in the waiting.
The hard part about not shouting the diagnosis from the rooftops is awareness.
This tumor is devastating. Funding is not sufficient. It’s called “rare,” but at this point, rare feels like a complete lie. I could make a long list of sweet children diagnosed in the last year alone, and an even longer list of the children who came before them.
The other hard part is hope.
Because if I don’t tell the story, how will another mom know what is possible?
How will she know there are kids out there thriving?
How will she know there are children playing basketball, volleyball, fastpitch, and golf?
How will she know there are kids going to school five days a week, earning mostly A’s, laughing with friends, and living life?
Our daughter is doing all of those things.
Most days, the only time she feels like she is battling cancer is when she’s at the hospital.
So maybe that’s the balance we’re still trying to find.
Protecting our daughter’s hope while sharing enough of her story to give hope to someone else’s child.
Because on Day One, hope was what I needed most. And maybe today, another mom needs it too.