Dana’s Journey: Holding Onto Faith, Hope, and the Power of Prayer ❤️🙏

Dear Family, Friends, and Our Incredible Support Community,

We wanted to share another update on Dana’s journey as we continue navigating this incredibly difficult road together.

Dana is currently at Duke, where she recently underwent her latest MRI and met with her neuro-oncology team. Unfortunately, her scan revealed another noticeable change in her brain. And once again, we find ourselves in an all-too-familiar place - not knowing whether what we’re seeing is new tumor growth or simply inflammation and an immune response from the immunotherapy treatment she’s receiving.

For those who have been following our journey, you may remember that we faced this very same situation a few months ago. We endured six agonizing weeks of waiting, praying, hoping, and trying not to let fear consume us. And now, here we are again, facing another six weeks of uncertainty before her next MRI can hopefully provide some much-needed answers.

Sometimes, the hardest part of this journey isn’t the treatments, the appointments, or even the diagnosis itself. It’s the waiting. The not knowing. The helpless feeling of wanting answers that simply aren’t available yet.

This time, I’m home with Evan, doing my best to provide him with the love, support, and stability he needs while Dana is at Duke, surrounded by her loving parents and one of her closest friends from college, Chad.

I want to take a moment to express just how grateful I am to Dana’s parents and to Chad for being there with her. Knowing that Dana has her mom and dad by her side, loving her, comforting her, and helping her navigate these incredibly difficult moments means more to me than I could ever put into words. Their unwavering love and devotion to their daughter are something I will never take for granted.

And Chad, thank you for showing up for your dear friend when she needs it most. Your friendship, compassion, and willingness to be there are such beautiful reminders of how fortunate Dana is to have people in her life who love her so deeply.

Being apart during moments like these is incredibly difficult. There’s nothing I want more than to be right there holding Dana’s hand, but I also know how important it is for Evan to have his dad home, providing him with a sense of love, comfort, and normalcy through all of this.

It truly takes a village to get through something like this, and I couldn’t be more grateful for the people who continue to show up for our family. ❤️

And through it all, we refuse to let fear be louder than our faith.

We continue to believe wholeheartedly in the power of prayer. We continue to trust Dana’s incredible medical team at Duke, the advancements in modern medicine, and the immunotherapy treatment she’s receiving. And above all, we continue to place our faith in God, trusting that even when we cannot see the path ahead, He is walking alongside us every step of the way.

We know these next six weeks will be difficult. There will undoubtedly be moments of anxiety, frustration, sadness, and fear. But there will also be moments of laughter, love, gratitude, and joy.

Because if this journey has taught us anything, it’s that we cannot allow the uncertainty of tomorrow to steal the blessings we still have today.

So today, we’re asking our incredible community for something very simple, but something we believe is extraordinarily powerful.

Please keep Dana in your prayers. 🙏

Pray that these changes are simply inflammation and signs of her immune system responding to treatment rather than tumor progression. Pray that the treatment continues to do its job. Pray for wisdom and clarity for her doctors. Pray for peace in Dana’s heart and strength for our entire family as we face another difficult period of waiting.

And above all, pray for more time. More beautiful mornings. More laughter. More family memories. More hugs. More opportunities for Dana to experience all the love and beauty that life still has to offer.

Throughout this journey, we’ve been reminded time and time again that we are not walking this road alone. The kindness, generosity, encouragement, and prayers from this community have carried us through some of the darkest moments of our lives.

You may never fully realize how much your love and support mean to our family, but please know that we feel it. Every single day.

We don’t know what the next MRI will reveal. We don’t know what the next chapter of this journey will look like.

But we do know this: We still have hope. We still have faith. And we are not giving up.

For now, we’ll keep living, keep loving, keep praying, and keep trusting that God is with us through every moment of this journey.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for loving Dana, for supporting Evan and me, and for continuing to stand beside our family through it all.

We love you all. ❤️

With endless gratitude, faith, and hope,

Josh, Dana & Evan ❤️🙏