Support Violet's Fight Against Brain Cancer

My name is Violet. I am a devoted Christian. I am a wife to a wonderful husband. I am a mom to four beautiful children. I am a U.S. Air Force veteran.

And I am battling an aggressive form of brain cancer called a glioblastoma. I am on a regimen of radiation and chemotherapy. Unfortunately, the type of cancer I have is unlikely to shrink in response to chemotherapy, which may limit my potential for an optimal response to traditional treatment options.

Most people who know me know I am a person of faith. When I pray, I know God hears me. Soon after I was diagnosed in May 2024, God told me that I would live. I believe this without question. I also know that faith without works is dead. So, my husband, Kenny, and I are searching for the vehicle for the miracle God has for me.

We think immunotherapy – a treatment option that is prompting dramatic results in other people who have even more aggressive glioblastomas than mine – could be that vehicle. It is available in clinical trials at several medical centers around the country and my doctors are willing to refer me to a center if I don’t progress by the end of my current treatment course.

The catch is that insurance won’t cover immunotherapy clinical trials for me because it isn’t yet approved by the FDA for glioblastoma treatment. We will have to pay for the treatments out of pocket and they can range from thousands, to tens of thousands, to sometimes crossing the hundred thousand dollar mark. We will have to travel to another state to access the treatments. The leading national clinical immunology research centers for glioblastoma are in Boston, MA and San Antonio, TX.

I am determined to find the path forward God has for me. There are three ways you can help:

Thank you so, so much for your time and your prayers, donations, and willingness to share this page.

My Story

In early March 2024, I noticed that I was becoming forgetful. At first, I chalked it up to stress and tiredness. After all, I had twins finishing up their junior year of high school. My oldest son was preparing to head to law school and the other was finishing up his freshman year in college. I was in a very busy period at work in a position I was relatively new to (I had only started the job in late 2023). I was volunteering regularly at church. In between all of that, I had begun to rejuvenate my fitness routine. My husband, Kenny, and I were also leading a small group at church. In late 2023, he had left his career as Director of Operations at Big Bend Harvest to enter the ministry full-time. One of my sons had just finished treatment for thyroid cancer. It made sense that with all of that going on, a few more things than normal might slip through the mental and logistical cracks of life.

But it felt like every day, I was thinking through a thick fog that kept getting thicker. Phone numbers, email addresses, and small details of all of the parts of our lives became harder to remember. After a while, Kenny and sometimes the kids began to notice I was forgetting things I typically wouldn’t have forgotten or that sometimes, some of the things I said weren’t making sense. I got worried enough to talk to my primary care doctor about what was happening. He reassured me that it sounded like I had a lot happening in life and that my forgetfulness mostly likely was due to stress. But just in case, he wanted me to have a scan within a few days to rule out any problems.

The following Monday, I went to Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare to have the scan. I was fully expecting the doctors to not see anything on the scan and send me home with advice to take a few days to rest. But that didn’t happen. After viewing my scan, the doctors came back and were very concerned because it n showed that my brain was swollen because of a tumor that was growing inside of it. They admitted me to the hospital right then and began treating me to reduce the swelling in preparation for surgery to remove as much of the tumor as possible. At the end of that week, I had surgery. Doctors removed a good amount of the tumor. To the naked eye, the doctors didn’t see the characteristics of a malignant tumor. But unfortunately, within another week or so, pathology proved otherwise. My tumor – a glioblastoma – was cancerous. Soon after then, I began radiation and chemotherapy.

Since then, life has become a succession of appointments and medication – radiation and chemotherapy to start. The medicine makes me feel sick and tired, so I slept a lot. Reading, talking, and processing certain types of information have become more difficult. I know what I am thinking or intending to say or do, but I can’t always express my thoughts, and my words or actions don’t always match my intent. For a person whose niche – at home and at work – has always been taking charge and creating order, these have been among the most difficult aspects of this ordeal for me. (My best friend has been listening to me talk about this since the beginning and took a stab at writing the words you are reading now. )

There have also been medical complications. Seizures. Blood clots. The onset of diabetes most likely prompted by medication. Dizziness. Loss of mobility. And of course, hair loss and other common chemo side effects.

I am now in month seven of chemotherapy. My tumor is stable, but not shrinking.

There are many things I used to manage in our home that I cannot manage right now. My husband, children, and family have had to stand in the gap. Kenny helps me manage my appointments and medication. My mom comes over when she can to help with cooking and housework. My kids have had to learn to take on some of the things I used to do for them. I can’t drive, so my oldest son and Kenny juggle transportation for the two youngest - who don’t yet have cars of their own – and me, when I have medical appointments.

I haven’t been able to go to work since the surgery. I was a City of Tallahassee employee; because many of my kind fellow City of Tallahassee employees generously donated hundreds of hours of leave, I was able to get paid through mid-October. By then, however, it was clear that we would not know for a while when I would be able to return to work. In mid-November, the City of Tallahassee had to terminate my employment, which cut our income in half.

I want to live. Because God has told me I will, I believe I will. But this is not how I want to live. I don’t say this in a spirit of entitlement. None of us is entitled to anything. But every day since I became a mom, I have prayed that God would let me live long enough to see them grown, established, and married to people who love them.

Before this ordeal began, I was fortunate enough to personally know a few people who have received bona fide miracles in response to prayer. Knowing from experience that this is possible has been a lifeline for me during this illness. I know that no matter what anyone says, my fate is in God’s hands. Most of my friends are people of faith. But some aren’t. If you are among the latter, you may read this part of my story and find it hard to believe. If that is the case, it is because you haven’t seen God work a miracle you thought was impossible, that experts may have said would never happen, or that you reflect on and still don’t understand how it all added up as it did. All I can say is that once you have experienced God delivering you or a loved one from a life-threatening trial in a way that lets you know only He could be responsible, you will understand. As long as it is God’s will for me to live, I know He can make it so. If you haven’t already witnessed a true miracle – one that only God would work – I pray you do. Maybe watching me navigate and overcome the trial I am living through will be that experience for you.

We are only at the midpoint in what may be a first leg of this journey. I have a treatment course to finish. I pray that my tumor responds to the chemo. But if it doesn’t, I pray that immunotherapy is the change-agent it has been for others whose prognoses were more dire than my own (read some of their stories here , here , and here . Also, a few immunotherapy-related articles here , here , and here .)

Even before all of this began, I was a glass-half-full girl. I believe things can always be worse than they are, and that we should focus on what is going right. Something is always going right – you may just have to look a little bit for it. We have a road ahead of us. But at least some milestones on it are coming into view. In 2021, my best friend moved to Boston, where some of the most advanced clinical immunotherapy trials are happening. Having family in Boston simplifies the prospect of receiving treatment there quite a bit.

For now, I will continue treatment here. My primary oncology team at Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare, along with UF Health Shands whom I will see every month or so, will continue to push for the very best result possible with chemo, and prepare to help me transition to an immunotherapy clinical trial if need be.

I don’t know – beyond continuing to believe in and fight for the life I know God has for me – what 2025 holds. Some of you reading this may be in equally trying times, Others of you may be in a peaceful season. Either way, my prayer is that good things are on the way for you in the New Year and that sometime this year, I will be able to share the kind of progress – in health, life, and everything else – that only God can engineer.

Blessings to you and yours in 2025!