While We're Waiting® - Hope After Child Loss

We were truly thankful for the time Hannah was able to enjoy with our extended family over the Christmas season, because once the holidays were over and everyone had headed home, her health unexpectedly began to decline.  Double vision had been an ongoing issue since she was first diagnosed, but it suddenly worsened and she struggled to get her eyes to focus together.  A feeling of being "off...

After Christmas, my brother and sister-in-law came to spend a few days with us. This was a very special treat because they are career missionaries, and years could pass between their visits. They were able to accompany us to one of our Children’s Hospital platelet infusions, and I took one of my favorite photos of Hannah with her cousin that day.  It was also one of the last photos taken of her be...

Maybe you've heard the statistics ... that upwards of 80% of marriages fail after the loss of a child.  Did you know that is actually a myth?  Of course, the loss of a child is disruptive to all of our relationships, not just the marriage bond, but there are strategies we can learn to lessen these impacts.   Ron and Nan Deal join me to talk about their new book titled "The Mindful Marria...

We enjoyed some good visits with our extended family over Christmas break that year.  Spending time with her cousins, aunts and uncles, and grandparents was one of Hannah's favorite things to do.  When we traveled to northern Arkansas, my parents rented a room at a local hotel so all the cousins could have fun together in the swimming pool.  The younger kids had a great time ... but Hannah di...

On the day after Christmas, we headed back to Children's Hospital for an uneventful platelet infusion.  That evening, at his request, I handed the computer to Brad and he wrote our email for that day ... Thank you for joining me for another bonus episode of the While We're Waiting podcast in this year-long series in which I share our family’s experiences as our teenage daughter Hannah ba...

This is the first time since starting the podcast a little over four years ago that an episode was due to be released on Christmas Day. I considered skipping it, knowing that many people would be busy with family gatherings or church services and might not even have time to listen. But then I thought about how our family literally missed Christmas last year due to the incident my husband Brad had...

Cancer doesn't take a break at Christmas time.  Christmas fell on a Thursday in 2008, and Hannah needed platelet infusions on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  The Hematology/Oncology Clinic at Children's was closed on Wednesday for Christmas Eve, so she actually had to be admitted to the general part of the hospital for a few hours to get her platelets.  It took longer than usual to get h...

As Christmas 2008 approached, we found ourselves in a very surreal position ... Profoundly grateful for the fact that Hannah was still with us, yet fully aware that without a miraculous intervention from God (and we absolutely believed that was possible), this would be our last Christmas with her.  We could already sense her gradually slipping away from us bit by bit.  That resulted in a very uniq...

Today's episode is a continuation of my conversation with John and Carrie Guenther, whose only child Gideon went to Heaven in the fall of 2020. Today we go deeper in our discussion, including the Guenther’s advice for newly bereaved parents, their response to the dreaded “How many children do you have” question, what they’ve discovered about God’s character in their journey, and how they’re l...

It was chemo day at last!  Almost two months after this new chemo was recommended to start, it was finally underway.  We weren't given the go-ahead because Hannah's platelet issues were resolved; no, we were starting in spite of the fact that they were not resolved.  As Christmas approached, we were simply grateful to be moving forward with a plan for treatment and the possibility of a c...

Today was the day Hannah would finally be starting her long-postponed chemotherapy treatments, and a predicted ice storm was not going to keep us away!  We were anxious to find out when her new MRI would be scheduled so we could get some answers to the increased nausea and headaches she was experiencing.  Our appointment at Children's Hospital was at 9:45 that morning, and we were hopeful for...

After our appointment on Monday, we expected that Hannah would continue with school since she was still not able to start chemo.  Instead, the ongoing side effects from the radiation began to unexpectedly intensify.  The morning nausea and near-constant headaches were increasing, preventing her from attending school.  This exacerbation caused us to question whether her issues were indeed still due...

I am so excited today to introduce you to my friends John and Carrie Guenther.  We met the Guenthers when they attended our very first While We’re Waiting Weekend in Ohio back in September of 2023.  As they shared the story of their son Gideon at that retreat, I was struck not just by the grace with which they expressed it, but by the profound loss parents who lose their only child endure. I’m exc...

As much as we were enjoying the relative normalcy of both girls being back in school leading up to Christmas break, we were really beginning to feel the urgency of starting chemotherapy before too much time elapsed following radiation.  The initial plan had been to start her new chemo treatments at the beginning of November, and here we were approaching the middle of December and she had yet to ha...

Hannah's brain cancer diagnosis did not legally preclude her from driving, but we all agreed it was best that she not drive during her treatments.  So I ended up driving her around a lot during that year, including those days she returned to school in early December of 2008.  One day as I drove her home from school, one of her favorite songs came on K-LOVE radio -- "Empty Me" by Ame...

In a previous episode, I described the moment Hannah first became my hero.  They day she returned to school for the first time since her cancer recurrence in September was the second. Thank you for joining me for another bonus episode of the While We're Waiting podcast in this year-long series in which I share our family’s experiences as our teenage daughter Hannah battled glioblastoma brain...

Melanie DeSimone is well-known in the bereaved parent community as the author of the blog “The Life I Didn’t Choose”, which has had over 4,000,000 hits since its inception in 2014.  She writes daily … pithy, practical posts … that speak directly to the hearts of grieving parents.  Over the last several months, the Lord has led her to expand her ministry beyond just writing.  Today we have a wide-r...

Even as we enjoyed our family time over the Thanksgiving holiday, we found ourselves looking ahead to Monday when Hannah would finally get to start her new chemotherapy treatments.   The reprieve from treatments had been wonderful, and we were so glad Hannah was finally feeling more like herself, but we were really beginning to feel the urgency to get back to fighting this cancer.  Every day that...

As we stepped through our holiday traditions, Brad and I were fully cognizant that this could be the last time we did these things together as a family of four.  My emails gave no indication of what an excruciatingly difficult time this was for us as Hannah's parents.  We were beginning to see daily indications that she was already leaving us, little by little.  They were small things ... not...

Welcome to episode #231, which is a continuation of my conversation with Lynda Wake, who is a wife, mom (or “mum” as she would say it), and grandmother.  She is also the author of two amazing devotional books, “Heartbreakingly Beautiful” and “Waiting Well With Jesus”, and the founder of the BE Blessings ministry, which you’ll hear more about today.     Last week, Lyn shared the story of how her da...

We returned to the Hem/Onc clinic at Arkansas Children's Hospital on Monday morning, fully prepared for Hannah to be admitted so she could finally start her new chemotherapy treatments.  But when her bloodwork showed a platelet level of 3,000 (normal is over 150,000), we knew we would not be starting that day.  With a platelet count that low, she was at risk for excessive bleeding ... and exc...

Though Hannah's ANC was rising, she was technically still in isolation due to her low blood counts.  In spite of this, we made the decision to attend one of Bethany's basketball games together as a family.  We sat by ourselves in an empty area of the bleachers.  Several well-wishers came by to speak to Hannah, and that was great, but we didn't allow them to come within more than a f...

Lynda Wake and her husband have served with Wycliffe Bible Translators since 1998, and currently reside in Melbourne, Australia.  She is a grandmother of two and a mom of four, including her daughter Bethany Joy who lived her brief life to the max!  She is the author of two devotional books, “Heartbreakingly Beautiful” and “Waiting Well with Jesus”, and the founder of BE Blessings ministry.  Lyn w...

Hannah's Facebook status from sixteen years ago today was this ... "Hannah is back from the hospital for the second time in 2 weeks but feeling great!" And an excerpt my email ... I wanted to spend a few minutes talking about Hannah in my update today. I don't usually say much about her personally, because she is a very private person and has been somewhat uncomfortable with so...

So after being told we would be in the hospital a few more days ... Boom, just like that, they were telling us we would be heading home tomorrow.  A welcome disruption to our schedule for once!  As long as Hannah's counts continued their upward trend, we would be busting out of the hospital soon and we couldn't have been more pleased! Thank you for joining me for another bonus episode of...