Now is the time to lift them up!

(Message from Jeff and Amy)


Hello, everyone.

We can't thank everyone enough for all the prayers and expressions of love and support you've sent and continue to send during this most challenging chapter in the unfolding Jensen Family (Lakewood, CA edition) saga. To know we have what seems like a small nation standing behind us—or really, holding us up—as we grapple with all this brain tumor junk has been a source of great strength. It has helped Amy to heal, helped me to plan, and helped our children understand in a truly dynamic sense the meaning of family and friendship. We've experienced great blessing in the midst of this great trial, and while you'll never, ever, EVER hear me say, "Thank God for brain tumors!", I will declare, loudly, that "God is good." I believe this--now, more than ever.

So here's the deal.

Contrary to what we may have told you previously, the small amount of tumor that remains inside Amy's brain—located in a delicate section of her gray matter; too risky to be extracted—is NOT the scary grade 3 stuff. It's actually the more slow-growing, less-aggressive grade 1-2 material. What the surgeons removed was the faster-growing, more-aggressive grade 3 cancer. Now this is good news, because it means it's not the super-strong, super-fast, super-deadly grade 4 crud, as originally thought. If it had been, Amy would have about 13 months to live. So…. PRAISE GOD it ain't a grade 4.

The problem, however, is that tumors aren't tidy little balls that are cleanly scooped out. They grow roots—long, thin, spider-like legs—from which other tumors can grow. These "roots," for lack of a better term, aren't easily removed. In fact, in Amy's case, they weren't removed at all.

So to recap: Amy's got a mass of grade 1-2 tumor and a bunch of grade 3 spider legs in her brain. What needs to be done? Simple.

Nuclear annahilation.

We need to kill all this stuff with radiation and chemo so the tumor ceases to grow, and the spider legs become incapable of yielding new tumors. Make sense? I hope so.

We're still plotting out the radiation schedule; we'll know more by Friday. But we suspect the regimen of chemo drugs and daily radiation treatments will begin in two weeks.

To be clear, we have a long way to go. A grade 3 situation is far from ideal. The stats say that if this thing can't be killed, the median prognosis is 27 months. Yes, that's a scary number. And it's not a number we should forget. But here's the deal: that ain't Amy's story. Amy's story is very much TBD. The doc declined to apply the stats to Amy, or even give her an official prognosis. This is the time for fighting, and there's reason to hope for victory. There are many factors in her favor. Her age. Her strength. And apparently, the tumor tissue is the kind of tumor tissue that responds well to chemo. So we say, Bring it on. Let the season of hope and courage begin.

Listen to me talk tough. Here's what we REALLY need: God. And from you, prayer. Pray for the doctors. Pray for the treatments. Pray that our insurance can cover all of this. (Chemo meds: $11,000 a month. That is NOT a typo.) And pray specifically for a miracle. Ask God to just destroy this thing, either through medicine, or via supernatural means.  I don't have a preference for the means--just the result.

Me am tired now, so me am going to stop. So I leave you with these two thoughts:

We love you.

Thank you for loving us.

Jeff and Amy (and Ben and Lauren)


Sent via blackberry