One Young Mom Learns What It Looks Like to Hold Joy and Sorrow

After a sudden seizure led to a terminal brain cancer diagnosis, Jenae Dryden’s life changed overnight. As a young mom facing an uncertain future, she wrestled with fear, identity loss, and the weight of time. Through community, faith, and the support of Inheritance of Hope, Jenae discovered a way to hold both joy and sorrow—finding connection, purpose, and unexpected peace along the way.

A Diagnosis That Changed Everything

In late 2021, Jenae Dryden suffered from a sudden seizure in her in-laws dining room. She was immediately rushed to the ER and was alone when told the worrying news: there was a mass in her brain. She would later have to inform her husband of this over the phone due to remaining Covid protocols from the previous year.

Doctors weren’t sure if Jenae’s tumor was low grade or a sign of cancer, so they sent her for an MRI scan. During this scan, she suffered another seizure, only to be assured by staff that her tumor was benign and that it should be easily taken care of after removal. Jenae recalled the experience as “Still scary, you know, just to realize there was a tumor in my brain.”

The tumor was successfully removed a month after it was discovered, but what should have been a relieving moment was cut short by a more terminal diagnosis of stage 4 glioblastoma brain cancer. Jenae was told that the cancer was very deadly because no matter how many times the tumors were removed, they would eventually return.

As a young mom in her forties, the news was shocking, especially because she didn’t show any symptoms prior to the seizure and she lived a healthy lifestyle. Jenae says that “My parents were still alive. My grandparents were still alive. I had three out of four grandparents still living. They were approaching their 90s or in their 90s and it was just shocking to be confronted with the news that, you know, there’s probably a 95 plus percent chance that you won’t be living in 18 months to two years. And there’s no cure for this.”

However, cancer doesn’t discriminate. So, during the Christmas season while others were buying gifts and prepping the holiday itinerary, Jenae was informed that she’d only have a year or two to live even with treatment. She worried she wouldn’t be able to see her children graduate from high school or any other important milestones in her family’s life. Oftentimes praying to God to  “Just give me five years. I know that’s an impossible prayer. I know that the statistics say that a very small percentage of people with my diagnosis would ever live five years.”

Navigating Change, Identity, and the Unknown

Though told her time on earth would be cut short so soon, Jenae still decided to undergo oral chemotherapy and radiation therapy over the course of a few months to target the tumor on her right frontal lobe which is a region involved in executive functions like decision making, attention, working memory and organization.

While dealing with the nausea, achiness, fatigue, and various other side effects from the interventional therapies, Jenae had to cope with how the diagnosis affected her identity. Since she’d previously considered herself a very organized person who in her own words described herself and her family as a very “competent family” who easily stayed focused and was a “capable woman,” it was hard for her to reconcile with her newer physical and mental weaknesses. 

“I was losing a lot of my identity. I was a foster mom. I’m not a foster mom anymore…I was a speech pathologist, I’m not a speech pathologist anymore.” 

Since Jenae previously worked in special education, she understood some of why she was struggling so much cognitively and has given herself grace for having to rely on visual cues like timers and planners to complete tasks she once could remember with ease. “It just was still so hard to lose some of that. And some of that hasn’t come back. Some of it has gotten a little better, but part of that is because of my awareness and I put in.”

Outside of her family, Jenae was still tasked with informing her other loved ones about the sudden diagnosis. She recalled it being one of the hardest parts of her experience but was overjoyed by the emotional support being offered to her during this difficult time. She recalled how “It was really amazing to see how people just wrapped around us right away.” Noting that her children’s school, her friends, and the church helped her family cope with the situation.

Finding Community and Hope in Terminal Illness

Though having a great support system at home, she wanted a place to bond with people who were going through a similar situation. Unfortunately, the local support groups only left her feeling more discouraged and out of place. This prompted her to search for different groups on the internet. There, she would find out about Inheritance of Hope’s Legacy Retreat®.

While at first reluctant, her family decided to come with her and see what Inheritance of Hope had to offer. What stood out to Jenae was the faith-based focus Inheritance of Hope had in promoting well-being and connection during times of extreme hardship. These groups had other cancer patients who were terminally ill like her and were able to understand how she felt when she shared her similar experiences with them.

Finding it cathartic, she returned back home where she could still stay involved with Inheritance of Hope through their Hope@Home™ program. A Friday morning program where families dealing with terminal illness could meet on Zoom and chat about their day to day lives living with their illnesses. Jenae noted that this could be difficult for some still coming to terms with their diagnosis, but she found that the experience has helped her grow and avoid “living in a Matrix.” 

“It is a sacred place. That’s a good way of putting it. I have definitely felt that sacredness or liminal kind of moments in these groups when we are approaching someone’s death or praying for someone.”

The Hope@Home™ community promotes an understanding but still optimistic environment through the jorrow™ model. Standing for joy and sorrow, members hope to challenge the common rhetoric of fighting against an illness and instead acknowledge that there can still be joy during adversity. Jenae says that she and her family have adopted this mindset, noting that her kids have become more compassionate and mature when interacting with their peers and her husband “Seems less anxious, more relaxed about our future, about his future, about our kid’s future than he ever did before.”

Living Against the Odds

While still an active member in the Inheritance of Hope community, Jenae lives a peaceful life as she manages her symptoms through a strict ketogenic diet. She was able to see her eldest child graduate from high school and she awaits her youngest child’s upcoming graduation in summer of this year. Her grandparents passed before her and in the case of her grandmother’s funeral, Jenae was the one giving the eulogy long after doctors told her she would pass away.

Hear more of Jenae’s story on the Inheritance of Hope Podcast. Listen now >>

Kennedy Owens a Storytelling Intern at Inheritance of Hope. She is currently a sophomore at Florida Southern College with a major in advertising and public relations, and is an active participant on her school campus as the Event Coordinator for the Young Adults Self Advocates club and Brand Manager for the school’s radio station The Hiss. She enjoys all things writing-related and likes to serve her community the best she can.