This week has b…

This week has been an emotional roller coaster ride!  I was brought crashing down from the high of the biggest gig of my career by a call telling me my brother Philip had been diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer earlier this week.  Wow. I think that might be terminal.  I’m told that he’s “lucky” in that he has a tumor in his pancreas and not his entire pancreas is cancerous… but where’s the luck in that?  We ARE all hanging on to the hope that an operation will remove it and that the cancer has not metastasized to the rest of his body.  Do the really great times in life make the down times seem that much worse?

I’ve had my share of heartache in my life.   My middle brother died when I was 18 when a drunk driver hopped the curb and ran him down walking down the street.  His wife, my sister in law, was gunned down when caught in the cross fire of a convenience store hold up she walked into less than a year later.  My first husband died of a drug overdose in 1993.  He was bipolar and was fine with his medications on board but, as is so often the case, when he was fine he would decide he didn’t NEED his medications and this could have catastrophic consequences.  My father passed away due to the complications of Alzheimer’s in 2007.  I’m not sure I could handle loosing another brother… and I just KNOW my mother would loose the will to live if my brother wouldn’t pull through this.

Philip, myself, and brother Joe at my wedding January 7, 2012…

I’m not sure if a blog or FaceBook or twitter are appropriate places to ask people to pray for situations like this… but I guess that’s what I’d really like to do. Please pray for guidance for his doctors and for healing in his body.  Pray for my families emotional well-being in all of this as well.

The roller coaster had another twist in the ride in that my husband’s daughter Kristen gave birth to a baby boy in Africa right about the same time we heard about Philip!  This is her third child and his name is Isaiah David John… a brother to Zechariah, almost 3, and sister Maisha, 4 and a half.  Kristen and her husband Kevin are group tour hosts in North Africa for groups from North America.  They speak several languages and two of their children have been born in North African hospitals.  I am not Kristen’s mother and to her children, I am “Aunty Julie”… or “Aunty Joe-Lulia”.  We had hoped to head out to Africa for a short visit after the baby was born but travel plans are on hold while Philip’s treatment plan is still uncertain.  Kristen’s mom, Jocelyn, is out there right now helping out the newly expanded family.  We hope this gets settled with Philip so we can head out there for a bit as well.  I’m in Boston for a show on April 7th so it would be wonderful if we could do that shortly after….

Such is life…

Little Zechariah sharing his toy car with newborn Isaiah…