{THE PERSPECTIVE}

We absolutely LOVE learning new things. Our whole family has an abundance of curiosity and creativity. Beginning on April 12, 2026, we embarked on a journey learning about a subject we never expected to need to learn…and it unlocked all kinds of new opportunities for creativity along the way.

Very quickly, we realized the learning curve for this specific diagnosis was incredibly steep. So we thought we would share some of what we have learned so you are better equipped to understand what we are dealing with. The pie chart graphics included with this post became a surprisingly meaningful way for us to process the journey as the diagnosis became more specific.

You will hear us talk about “Justin’s diagnosis,” butyou will not hear us take ownership of cancer, glioblastoma, or any of the scary medical terms that do not lead to healing and life…at least not intentionally.The fact is that there is cancer…a yucky, gross, nasty reality…in Justin’s brain. It has specific genetics and behaviors that are important to factor in as we work to evict these unwelcomed cells from their current place of residence. But Justin does not claim to “have cancer.” That distinction matters to us. This cancer does not belong to him. It is not part of God’s original design for him. And we believe it’s important not to take ownership of something that isn’t God’s best for us.

Our words matter. How we think about things matters. What we give permission to matters.

It’s important to us that you hear this before you read the details below, because we are being very intentional in how we handle these things and hope you will do the same.🙂

{THE BEGINNING}

Sunday, April 12, we had a rare morning where our church was not meeting in our home. The slowness of the morning gave space for Justin to really pay attention to the increasing lack of coordination he had been experiencing on his left side for a few weeks. He tripped a couple of times over his left foot and became super frustrated trying to get into his truck. His body just wasn’t responding the way it should. He sat Maegan and me down and shared his concerns, and we decided to take him to the ER out of an abundance of caution. There are a ton of things that can cause seemingly mild symptoms like this…most inconvenient, but easily corrected.

Surprisingly, we didn’t wait long before the initial evaluations led to a CT scan. We were still sitting in the waiting room when we were called into a small room where a doctor we had never met showed us the scans.

That five minutes changed our lives forever.

The possibilities of what we were facing shifted dramatically. Justin had something in his head that didn’t belong. This was not going to be corrected with a dose or two of meds or a diet change. This was serious. Everything moved very quickly from there…from that small room, to a bed in a hallway, to an ambulance, to another hospital.

When we first heard the words “golf-ball-sized mass,” we knew almost nothing about brain tumors. Understandably, our minds immediately entertained the worst-case scenario. But we quickly learned that “brain tumor” is actually an enormous category covering many very different conditions with very different outcomes…most of which are far from the worst scenario. At that point, we learned only around 26% of brain tumors are malignant, so the odds of the “c-word” still seemed relatively low. In those first hours, before more imaging, pathology, or surgery, there was still a very wide range of possibilities.

We had no idea what was ahead of us. It was scary. It was surreal. It was significant.

We didn't have to ask for our people to drop everything and come to our side. They moved. They bought plane tickets. They brought blankets...and more blankets! With them came comfort...desperately needed comfort. I'm pretty sure we broke the record for the most people that could be in one IMU room at the same time! You guys began to pray and send messages and we were able to hold on to the very tangible truth that whatever this unknown was going to bring, that we wouldn't be alone. Peace begin to grow. It was sacred.

{THE OPTIONS}

During the first night in the hospital, I began mentally running through the odds and options of what might be ahead. I felt God draw my attention to the concept of a pie chart filled with possible outcomes. We started with so many possibilities, and many had already begun to be eliminated. But instead of shifting the graph in the “normal” way…redistributing the remaining odds among the scary categories…I saw the tiny wedge labeled “miracle” replace every eliminated option instead.I felt Him show me that the ultimate result of this journey would be a miracle, and that we could choose to view this process through that paradigm-shifting lens if we wanted to. So I chose to expand the miracle wedge of the graph with each update instead of giving that real estate to the scary stuff.The pattern became that with every “bad news” update, the miracle wedge grew…not out of desperation, but out of activation and belief.

This is an attempt to show you what has been going on in my mind and to help maybe give you some perspective of the diagnosis and how it was uncovered...

The next morning at Memorial Hermann Southwest, they performed more extensive imaging. The surgeon needed better information for the resection, and the team was also searching for tumors elsewhere in his body. Most malignant tumors found in the brain are actually metastatic (they begin somewhere else in the body…lung, breast, melanoma, etc.…and later spread to the brain).…not “primary” brain cancer. We had no clue there was such an important difference in the types of brain cancer just one day before...we had never needed to know.

The full-body imaging showed no evidence of another primary cancer elsewhere in his body. Oddly, it felt like the doctors were apologizing that theydidn’tfind cancer somewhere else. How could that not be good news?

But we soon understood why.

The absence of cancer elsewhere shifted the diagnosis toward the much smaller…and more serious…category of aggressive primary brain tumors. Less places in the body didn't in fact mean good news...it meant a much harder problem to solve. Options narrowed. The frozen section analyzed during surgery, along with the physical appearance of the tumor itself, eliminated the possibility that this tumor was benign. Only malignant tumors look like this. Options narrowed again.

As more imaging and surgical findings came in, terms we had never heard before suddenly became part of our daily vocabulary, most of which are too long to find on a game of Wordle. We were learning in real time. Some understanding came from the patient members of the surgical team, but honestly, most of it we learned on our own…researching late into the night every new term we heard and trying to understand how specific the diagnosis was becoming. One of the first things we learned is that primary brain tumors are not classified by “stages” like many other cancers. They are classified by “grades.” A grade describes how abnormal and aggressive the tumor cells appear under the microscope and how aggressively they are expected to behave. Grade 4 is the highest grade.

God reminded me as the bad news kept getting worse, that "in order for the good news to be really good, the bad news needed to be really bad."So we choose to see the good news account growing and growing with each new "bad" term we were learning.

{THE DIAGNOSIS}

The final pathology of this uninvited guest in Justin’s brain was identified as Glioblastoma (GBM), WHO Grade 4, IDH-wildtype, MGMT-unmethylated. This means it’s a highly aggressive, invasive cancer that tends to respond to chemo less effectively than other types.

Fun facts: Even among brain tumors, this diagnosis is relatively uncommon. Glioblastoma accounts for only a small percentage of all tumors found in the brain. In the United States, only around 12,000–13,000 people each year receive a glioblastoma diagnosis, and the average age at diagnosis is around 64 years old. If overachieving on the type of cancer to be dealing were a super power, the Justin for sure has it!

As we have learned more, we have also come to understand why specialists approach this diagnosis so differently than many other cancers people are familiar with. Glioblastoma is not simply a tumor sitting on the brain. It is considered a diffusely infiltrating disease, meaning microscopic cells spread through surrounding brain tissue in ways that cannot fully be seen on scans or safely removed surgically. In addition to these invasive cells, Justin also had smaller masses that could not be surgically removed because of their location inside the brain.

So while hearing that 98% of the visible tumor had been resected sounded incredible at first, we slowly learned that not only would the visible remaining 2% continue to grow, but the massive area previously exposed to the removed tumor still contained infiltrating cancer cells waiting to mature into whole new monsters. This is why, even after a successful surgery removes all visible tumor, doctors still proceed with aggressive follow-up treatment.

{THE PROGNOSIS AND TREATMENT}

The standard prognosis for this kind of cancer is less than favorable. We won't share what we have been told about timelines and quality of life going forward because we believe that Justin will be an "outlier", one who doesn't fall into the averages that science has documented. We are aware of the serious nature of this diagnosis and will be wise in the way we make decisions and live each day in light of a very real possibility of affects on life span and how those days are affected. But we won't claim months or years or negative outcomes.Remember, this story is a miracle!

The current worldwide standard-of-care treatment…often called the “Stupp Protocol”…includes surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, and ongoing surveillance imaging. Additional therapies, clinical trials, immunotherapies, and evolving treatments are often discussed throughout the process as well.

Responses to this kind of cancer are aggressive because these tumors usually grow back quickly and adapt rapidly to treatments meant to eliminate them. One of the hardest realities we have had to learn is that specialists have prepared us for the likelihood that treatment decisions will continue indefinitely. With this type of glioblastoma diagnosis, the medical expectation is generally framed not as “if” the tumor returns, but “when.” Because of the infiltrative nature of the disease, even clear or stable scans are understood differently than they may be with many other cancers. The language surrounding this diagnosis is often centered around slowing progression, extending meaningful quality of life, preserving neurological function, and continuing to pursue new treatment options as research rapidly evolves.

Science uses terms like “incurable” and “terminal” for this diagnosis.

BUT GOD.

{THE PLAN}

One thing we want people to understand is thatour approach to this diagnosis is deeply integrated. We are not approaching this journey from a place of blind trust in any one system, philosophy, protocol, or personality. But we are also not approaching it from a place of cynicism toward every doctor, medication, or treatment either. We have quickly learned there are sincere, intelligent, compassionate people in so many different disciplines of healing…all fully invested in helping people navigate diagnoses like this. Everyone is trying to solve extraordinarily difficult problems for desperate patients with a currently unsolvable matrix to work from.

Before this diagnosis, Justin had said for years that he would never pursue chemotherapy or radiation if faced with cancer. Even after surgery, he held that conviction strongly for a time. We have significant concerns about many aspects of modern cancer care. We believe there are real limitations within the current medical and pharmaceutical systems. In addition, we believe there are promising natural therapies, repurposed drugs, metabolic approaches, nutritional strategies, nervous system regulation, emotional healing, spiritual healing, and alternative therapies that deserve far more attention, research, and honest discussion than they often receive. We also recognize that many standard-of-care cancer treatments can be extremely harsh on healthy tissue and carry significant long-term costs.

At the same time, the more we learned specifically about THIS glioblastoma diagnosis, the more we realized most of what we previously understood or suspected simply didn’t apply to this particular breed of invader.

It’s different.

For many reasons, protocols and treatments that may work for other types of cancer…even cancers that metastasize to the brain…often do not work on this hitchhiker.

As we learned more, Justin began to believe that pursuing at least the early phases of the Stupp Protocol (Phase I being tumor resection and Phase II being six weeks of combined radiation and chemotherapy) as part of an integrated strategy offered the best possibility for the longest and most meaningful life ahead. So our current approach is not “only standard-of-care,” nor is it “only alternative.” It also is not putting our faith in God in a way that sits back and waits for healing while pretending there is not a very real battle happening.

God absolutely uses the physical world as a vehicle for supernatural healing.

The approach Justin is taking is an intentional attempt to fight this diagnosis from as many wise angles as possible…simultaneously. We are pursuing conventional treatment while also aggressively researching and implementing complementary strategies involving nutrition, metabolic health, supplementation, off-label and repurposed medications, holistic healing approaches, nervous system regulation, spiritual health, emotional health, prayer, fasting, community, and emerging therapies.

It is not an approach of desperation. It is an openness to anything and everything God opens the door to, while also being willing to say “no” when needed.

We know this approach may not align perfectly with everyone’s beliefs or experiences, and that is okay. Some people believe conventional medicine should be trusted almost exclusively. Others believe most answers already exist outside the medical system and are being ignored or suppressed. Our perspectives are shaped by personal experiences, losses, healings, research, disappointments, testimonies, and stories they have witnessed firsthand. We respect that. We do not all need to see these options the same way because none of our journeys are exactly alike. Experts in every discipline have invested decades in specific aspects of this diagnosis, many patients have testimonies that have paved a way for the beginning of ours, and there are new opportunities on the horizon that are yet to be pioneered. We value it all!

Healing is found on all of these pathways…and in combinations no one fully understands yet. Honestly, we believe humanity knows far less than we often think we do…especially when it comes to a diagnosis as complex and unpredictable as glioblastoma.

One thing we continue hearing from specialists, researchers, survivors, and families alike is that no two glioblastoma diagnoses behave exactly the same way. Tumors with similar pathology can respond very differently to the exact same treatments. Outcomes vary widely. Science is still learning. That reality has created both humility and freedom for us. Humility, because no person, doctor, researcher, influencer, study, or protocol can honestly claim to fully understand this disease or guarantee the perfect path forward. And freedom, because while we may not be able to choose with certainty what is “perfect,”we still must choose thoughtfully, prayerfully, and courageously with the information we have in front of us today.If the best and brightest in every discipline pursuing a cure for glioblastoma have not fully figured it out yet…then we certainly should not expect to either.

{THE HOPE}

Thankfully, we are in close relationship with THE Healer, and He DOES know exactly what will help Justin’s body fight off this cancer and move back toward original design.

Ultimately, we know Justin needs a miracle. Thankfully, we have an all-access pass to The Source of Miracles. He knows us by name. He knows exactly what we need and exactly what to do about it!

We believe God sometimes works through medicine, sometimes through prayer, sometimes through the body He designed, sometimes through wisdom, fasting, community, immunotherapy, surgery, research breakthroughs, or combinations no one fully understands yet. And sometimes He moves in ways no human can explain at all. Again…we choose to remain open to it all.

Each day, we simply want to see what He wants us to see that day…do what He leads us to do for that day…and leave the rest for tomorrow. So we are learning, praying, researching, questioning, listening, discerning, hoping, and fighting…one decision at a time. The pie graphs of science would look very different with the focus being on the big long scary words and their accompanying doom and gloom, but we choose to see it differently.God IS good. This story IS a miracle!

Friends, remember that whatever you are facing in your life, you get to choose how you look at it. I hope your decision trees, pie charts and potential pathways are miracle-minded and goodness-focused. If not, maybe take a look at it again and see what it takes to shift your perspective. It WILL change things and the change will bring you LIFE!!