Ellie Ledin (00:01.216)
Okay, welcome to the Inheritance of Hope podcast. Why don’t you introduce yourself and tell the audience who you are and a little bit of your background.
Jenae Dryden (00:04.205)
Sure, hi. I’m Janaye Dryden and I am a 45-year-old woman with grade four Glioblastoma brain cancer. And I live in Washoogle, Washington, which is pretty close to Portland, Oregon.
And I have a husband of 25 years and two kids. My daughter is in her first year of college up at Wheaton College in Illinois. And she’s 18 and my son is a junior in high school and he’s 16. And I was diagnosed about three and a half years ago. So October of 2021.
And it came as a complete surprise. My kids were 13 and 15 at the time. And it was just a really scary, like I got a seizure at my in-laws dining room table in front of everybody, like my family, my brother and sister-in-law and their kids, and my mother-in-law. Thankfully, you know, they were there to take care of the kids, take care of me, call the ambulance.
Ellie Ledin (01:25.966)
Mm.
Jenae Dryden (01:29.421)
It came out of nowhere, which it was a complete shock. I really didn’t have any symptoms leading up to that. And I was taken to the hospital. And of course, this is still sort of pandemic precaution time, late 2021. So my husband couldn’t be with me in the ER. And I was there for a while and I was really like in and out, cause seizures just…
Ellie Ledin (01:44.003)
Mm.
Jenae Dryden (01:56.939)
It was a grand mal seizure and it really kind of messes with your kind of awareness and memory and all that kind of stuff. So that was scary because I really didn’t know what was going on. But I remember a doctor coming into me and saying, you know, doing a scan and saying, you have a mass in your brain and we’re going to find out more. And I was all alone. It was terrifying. thankfully she did get my husband on the phone. He was in the parking lot.
Ellie Ledin (02:02.264)
Hmm.
Ellie Ledin (02:15.512)
Wow.
Ellie Ledin (02:20.301)
Yeah.
Jenae Dryden (02:25.025)
He couldn’t come in, but he was just waiting to find out what was wrong. And so I was in the hospital for, think, you know, through that night and then the next night, just being monitored. And I think I had another seizure in an MRI machine and then went home and.
At first they told me this looks like a pretty low grade tumor, but you know, we need to see, we need to check again. but we are going to send you home and put you on steroids and anti-seizure medication and all that. But we don’t think it’s a really high grade, seriously aggressive cancer, but it was still like scary, you know, just to, realize there was a tumor in my brain. it took me just, you know,
Ellie Ledin (03:05.934)
Mm.
Yeah.
Jenae Dryden (03:15.009)
about a week to recover from that experience, like my, it just messes with your brain having seizures. And then we, let’s see, I think we did another MRI maybe a month later just to like let the swelling from the seizure go down and see what was there, get a clear image, met with a neurosurgeon, kind of had some options. They still didn’t think it was super aggressive and
Ellie Ledin (03:21.422)
Mm.
Jenae Dryden (03:44.471)
Said you can wait, know, just when would you like your surgery? We decided I did want surgery. I didn’t want just to do a biopsy to find out more. I wanted to just get it out, you know? And so I think I had the surgery right after Thanksgiving of that year. So maybe like a little over a month later. surgery went well. I recovered really well. And
Ellie Ledin (03:49.432)
Mm.
Ellie Ledin (03:54.03)
Mm.
Jenae Dryden (04:12.095)
Right after the surgery, the surgeon said, well, actually, it’s a little bit higher grade than we thought. It’s a grade three, which is cancer. And you’re going to have to be on chemo and get radiation treatments. But we’re also sending the tumor into the labs to get more pathology and genetic testing results. And that will tell us more. And so those results took a couple more weeks. And when those results came back, they’re like,
Sorry, but this is kind of the worst case scenario. All your molecular genetic testing came back the way that you wouldn’t want the least favorable kind of results. And you’re now upgraded to a grade four Glioblastoma tumor and met with an Oncologist who basically told me I had probably a year or two to live even with treatments.
Ellie Ledin (04:45.314)
Wow.
Ellie Ledin (04:51.075)
Hmm.
Ellie Ledin (05:00.878)
Mm.
Jenae Dryden (05:12.631)
So that was right before Christmas of that year. And of course we were just completely devastated. Like how could I be this like young, healthy mom with teenagers and I wouldn’t get to see them graduate from high school. 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
Ellie Ledin (05:16.174)
Mm.
Ellie Ledin (05:35.406)
Yeah.
Jenae Dryden (05:43.223)
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. None. Everybody eventually dies from Glioblastoma. It always comes back, even if we get it out. So, I mean, that was just devastating. were
Ellie Ledin (06:11.937)
Yeah.
Jenae Dryden (06:13.087)
You know, I knew I was going to be going into chemo and radiation treatments and all of that. But just like the shock of that news on our life completely changed everything.
Ellie Ledin (06:24.11)
Mm-hmm.
Jenae Dryden (06:27.085)
So, you know, we were fostering a baby at the time and like it just life was, I was working, I’m a speech language pathologist. I was working part time in an elementary school. So I stopped working. We slowly transitioned out of foster, being foster parents. my goodness, sorry. It’s like healing or really pouring out here. This is Washington weather.
Ellie Ledin (06:32.96)
Wow.
Ellie Ledin (06:50.286)
That’s funny. Yeah.
Jenae Dryden (06:56.857)
And.
So yeah, then we just were, okay, wrapping around our family, bringing in, sharing the news. That was one of the hardest things was telling people, telling my parents, telling my siblings, telling my best friends and all these phone calls and come over, we have news to share with you, like helping our kids.
telling their teachers and counselors and like, is what’s going on in our family. And it just felt like over and over we were having these really, really hard conversations with people. And we’re just so grateful. We have such wonderful people in our life. We’ve been, we’re really connected to a church that has long-time friends and very close friends who care for us. We, our family,
It was wonderful. know, of course they were extremely, my parents were just heartbroken and sad and my siblings and best friends, but everyone was just so supportive and immediately started praying for me, praying for us, caring for my kids, my husband. It was really amazing to see how people just wrapped around us right away. So that was a beautiful thing during that hard
Ellie Ledin (08:01.55)
Yeah.
Ellie Ledin (08:20.622)
Mm.
Jenae Dryden (08:24.109)
And then I started radiation treatments in January, and that was six weeks, five days a week, every day going in getting my brain radiated, and then started oral chemotherapy at the same time as that, and then had a little bit of a break, and then did about five months, five or six months of intermittent.
Ellie Ledin (08:40.501)
Wow.
Jenae Dryden (08:53.279)
oral chemotherapy at a higher dose. So all in all, was pretty much done and that standard of care treatment, I had just standard of care treatment for Glioblastoma. And I was done with that probably September of 2022. So almost a year after my seizure. And in the meantime, you know, I lost like half of my hair and it came back.
curly. It’s straight right now, but normally it’s curly. So I went through that. I had a lot of side effects like nausea and fatigue, achiness, things like that. Overall, treatment. I mean, I’ve been around enough people with cancer at this point to know that my side effects weren’t nearly as bad as some people’s are.
Ellie Ledin (09:24.534)
Okay.
Jenae Dryden (09:51.669)
So I’m grateful for that. But you know, the whole thing did affect my brain, which is a huge part of who I am. And one of the hardest things for our family, I think during that first year or two was seeing the changes in kind of my personality and functioning. So the place in my brain where my tumor is or was, or will probably come back is my right frontal lobe.
Ellie Ledin (09:59.469)
Yeah.
Jenae Dryden (10:18.977)
So thankfully it doesn’t affect my language speech centers, but it definitely affects my executive functioning. So whereas before I was out of very, was never struggled with things like attention or memory or focus or organization. Suddenly all those things became really challenging. And I’d forget things, I’d make bad decisions and it was really embarrassing. And it was really just hard, I think,
Ellie Ledin (10:45.933)
Hmm.
Jenae Dryden (10:48.769)
for my family to adjust to that because they were so used to me being one way for so long. And then suddenly I lost these capabilities and skills. having worked in special education, I had some awareness of what was going on, but also 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
Ellie Ledin (11:12.686)
Mm.
Jenae Dryden (11:17.663)
a ton of strategies to help me with it. And very intentional with making lists and writing things down and setting timers and reminders and all these things I never had to do. So that’s one way it’s long-term affecting me. And I went on a Ketogenic diet, which was that
Ellie Ledin (11:31.757)
Yeah.
Jenae Dryden (11:47.435)
Just a number of people and resources directed me to that, which is supposed to be, it’s not a cure for brain cancer, but it can help prolong the time until the cancer comes back. But it’s also a huge impact on my daily life managing a very strict therapeutic diet.
Ellie Ledin (12:05.806)
Mm.
Ellie Ledin (12:14.734)
you
Jenae Dryden (12:15.883)
That’s a huge part of my journey now. Let’s see. What else, Ellie? What else would you like to know? Within all that time, I did get connected to Inheritance of Hope. So I can talk about that if you’d like.
Ellie Ledin (12:24.246)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Yeah, well, man, I feel like so much came up as you were sharing that I want to ask so many questions. And I think one thing that immediately comes up is, you know, when you were first diagnosed, you were given this timeline and the initial fear of, I, what do you mean? I won’t see my kids graduate. And now you have passed that timeline and it sounds like you’ve
Jenae Dryden (12:40.811)
Mm-hmm.
Jenae Dryden (12:48.781)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yes, yeah. Yeah.
Ellie Ledin (12:59.832)
seen one of your kids graduate is there in college. So man, can you talk about that?
Jenae Dryden (13:07.997)
Yes, I can, probably with a tissue because, Yeah, that was the hardest thing for me. Like, I’m not going to see my kids grow up and launch. And they were old enough to really.
Ellie Ledin (13:12.053)
Yeah.
Jenae Dryden (13:25.663)
understand what was going on. And so just to see that fear and precarity in their lives, to introduce that into their lives was really hard. And I just immediately like, that was my very number one prayer. I’m like, God, just give me five years. I know that’s an impossible prayer. I know that like the statistics say that it’s a very small percentage of people with my diagnosis would ever live five years.
Ellie Ledin (13:28.034)
Mm-hmm.
Ellie Ledin (13:42.616)
Hmm.
Jenae Dryden (13:54.081)
but please just let me have five years so I can see Ellie and Jack graduate high school and launch. And so when Ellie did, I was just like, I mean, it was such an interesting moment because a lot of parents when they’re first born goes to, and she went far away. She’s like two time zones away from us. She has to, you know, she flew on an airplane and, you know, it’s very bittersweet to like.
Ellie Ledin (14:15.222)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Jenae Dryden (14:22.231)
say goodbye to that stage of parenting. But for me, I was like, my goodness, I’m here for this. I am with her at this moment and I’m so grateful and I’m so proud of her and she did so well getting through high school. And I mean, she was amazing. She was amazing. So it was so beautiful to like get to that point.
Ellie Ledin (14:30.626)
Yeah.
Ellie Ledin (14:44.814)
you
Jenae Dryden (14:50.911)
And now my son is finishing his junior year. I’m really, I’m doing really well. I’m really healthy. There’s no signs that this is coming back. So I feel like that’s it’s going to happen. Like I’m going to make it till June, 2026 and see him walk across the stage. I just really believe that I haven’t had any real setbacks since my treatment ended. And so many people are praying for me and
Ellie Ledin (15:01.56)
Mm.
Ellie Ledin (15:13.432)
Hmm.
Jenae Dryden (15:19.573)
I just feel like…
God is protecting me through this, like my heart’s biggest wish. He’s granting it and I’m so thankful. And they are thriving, they’re thriving. And there’s so many ways they’re thriving because of what’s happened to us. And same with my husband, he’s thriving. He’s a different person than, we both are different, we’re all different than we were.
Ellie Ledin (15:43.278)
Mmm.
Ellie Ledin (15:51.553)
Yeah.
Jenae Dryden (15:52.201)
four years ago. that’s been, yeah, it was the hardest thing, but it’s also been one of the best things in a way, just to see how God has grown us and taught us things and made us rely on Him. And so many times I just would cry and pray and talk with my friends and my family and just be like, just
Ellie Ledin (16:03.875)
Mm.
Jenae Dryden (16:21.213)
opening my hands to what he what God has for us and that I just have never had to do that before in the same way to just completely like my life is totally in your hands not just like sort of abstractly like yes, of course. Everything is yours. It’s like no I It’s literally like in your hands and I don’t take any moment for granted so
Ellie Ledin (16:25.454)
Mm.
Ellie Ledin (16:35.48)
Yeah.
Ellie Ledin (16:42.348)
Hmm.
Jenae Dryden (16:50.603)
I mean, I’m just, I I would love to get old. I would love to get like gray hair and wrinkles and be a grandma. And you know, that seems like an impossible wish, but I’m gonna be here to see them launch. So that’s exciting.
Ellie Ledin (16:55.918)
Mm.
Hmm.
Ellie Ledin (17:04.856)
Hmm.
Yeah. Yeah. And man, how do you… I feel like that’s such a hard place to wrestle in of, this is what was spoken to me, and this is what is from a professional’s experience or educated guess, essentially. And then now, that’s what I’m kind of expecting. Okay, but now the plan has changed or life is turning out a little bit differently. So…
Jenae Dryden (17:20.843)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, one of my favorite things.
Ellie Ledin (17:37.218)
Yeah, what can I hope for? Yeah, that is probably a severely complicated gray area that you’re living in.
Jenae Dryden (17:49.953)
to say is, you know, I just do the next right thing. I don’t look too far ahead. I don’t have a lot of regrets about what came before. I’m very much living in the moment. I’m a very grateful person. And I did practice gratitude before this. I mean, really for probably, almost 15 years, had a daily practice of writing down things that was grateful.
And then, so I’m really glad that was already a habit for me to have that kind of heart posture. And like the gratitude is so much richer and so much, you know, like every season, I’m just amazed what’s happening outside and every, you know, milestone.
Ellie Ledin (18:43.31)
Hmm.
Jenae Dryden (18:48.541)
every birthday, every holiday. I’m so grateful for it.
Ellie Ledin (18:53.07)
Yeah, it’s almost as if it sounds like your capacity to receive those things has exponentially grown because now as you’re sitting, as you know, when your kids is graduating high school and you were told that you weren’t gonna see that and now you’re sitting there and yeah, there’s grief of okay, this is a changing season and going away to college but man, I can’t imagine like the depth.
Jenae Dryden (18:59.277)
Mm-hmm.
Jenae Dryden (19:06.925)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Ellie Ledin (19:21.898)
of that feeling and not just, wow, this is a big day, but now this is amazing. I’m here and fully present and kind of aware of how big of a moment this is. And so it really stuck out to me when you said, you you almost changed in your personality or your habits or things that.
Jenae Dryden (19:36.829)
For sure.
Ellie Ledin (19:48.299)
you never did before and now you have to rely on timers and lists and all these things to feel like you can function at a somewhat normal level. And it almost feels like that is a way that the Lord strips away how we rely on our own strength and re-put it on him.
Jenae Dryden (20:07.238)
Yes, I have learned that lesson so much Ellie you nailed it. I mean I feel like before this I thought of myself as a very competent person and and we are a very competent family all four of us and I say that with gratitude for what God’s given us for
Ellie Ledin (20:20.92)
Yeah.
Ellie Ledin (20:26.926)
Hmm.
Jenae Dryden (20:32.727)
for all the people who have poured into us, kind of being genetically lucky, living in the United States of America, so much given to us by the grace of God. But yeah, we were very competent in our own strength. I was very competent in my own strength. And I could say I trusted God and relied on Him, but I never really had to…
Ellie Ledin (20:50.83)
Mm-hmm.
Jenae Dryden (21:04.937)
experience his strength and weakness until this. So that lesson of when I am weak, he is strong. It’s not me, but Christ in me who’s doing these things. That just like hit me upside the head. Because suddenly I was losing a lot of my identity. I was a foster mom. I’m not a foster mom anymore.
Ellie Ledin (21:25.742)
Mm.
Ellie Ledin (21:31.47)
Yeah.
Jenae Dryden (21:34.357)
I was a speech pathologist, I’m not a speech pathologist anymore. I was a super organized, focused, capable woman, and now I need all these strategies. I, you know, and I still forget stuff. I still make mistakes all the time. I’m more tired than I used to be. I don’t have as much energy. And so just physically I’m weaker. So, man, all of those are just…
Ellie Ledin (21:37.518)
Mm.
Ellie Ledin (21:59.149)
Hmm.
Jenae Dryden (22:03.881)
opportunities to say, I can’t do it. Yet not I but through Christ in me. That’s I love that phrase that song. Yeah.
Ellie Ledin (22:10.53)
Yeah.
Mm.
Yeah, and I mean, you probably experience that, have experienced that so much more than someone who…
Jenae Dryden (22:26.477)
Mm-hmm.
Ellie Ledin (22:28.46)
you know, maybe like the kind of person you were before a diagnosis where it’s like, yeah, I mean, I have a relationship with God. I trust in him. But man, like this has probably revealed so much, especially, you know, as you were saying, you were doing things that you were then embarrassed about because you’re like, wait, what am I doing? That doesn’t feel like me. And maybe that’s the point, you know, maybe it’s like stripping it away.
Jenae Dryden (22:31.266)
Mm-hmm.
Jenae Dryden (22:36.171)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Ellie Ledin (22:56.17)
so that it can, yes, like reveal who God is in you versus who you perceive yourself to be.
Jenae Dryden (22:56.231)
It really was. Yeah. Yeah.
Ellie Ledin (23:07.15)
I don’t know if you’re familiar with Kristen Milligan, the co-founder of Inheritance of Hope, and she wrote a book, Consider it Pure Joy, and in that, I mean, she was a mom facing this terminal diagnosis, three young kids, and in her book, she talks about being in the midst of the fire and in all these struggles that her family would have never, ever put themselves in, like that it was not a choice.
Jenae Dryden (23:22.029)
You’d never choose to do that, no.
Ellie Ledin (23:37.057)
No. Right. And she said, if I knew that the Lord was not biased, I would, I felt like God’s favorite child in the midst of all the fires and the trials that she was going through. And I, I’m curious if you in your journey have experienced like being loved as God’s favorite child, God’s favorite child in the midst of all this.
Jenae Dryden (23:48.107)
Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
Jenae Dryden (23:55.981)
yes. Yes, so I am part of the Friday morning family gathering, I Hope at Home group and Jill leads that group and that is one of her top favorite things to say to us is that we are God’s favorite child. So definitely it’s been
Ellie Ledin (24:09.71)
Hmm.
Ellie Ledin (24:17.997)
Mm.
Jenae Dryden (24:23.861)
drilled into me through Jill and that book, Kristin’s Story. But just like for personal experience, I do feel like my daily rhythms and my daily practice of the presence of God is so much richer. I walk every day and I wake up really early in the morning, not necessarily by my choice, but
Ellie Ledin (24:43.8)
Mm-hmm.
Ellie Ledin (24:52.366)
Yeah.
Jenae Dryden (24:53.227)
I have found that it’s just been such a sweet time with me and the Lord every morning. And I do just have more time, I guess, more intentionality in my experience of God and His closest to me and how much He loves me. And I have just these like prayers that, know, words of scripture.
Ellie Ledin (25:11.64)
Mm.
Jenae Dryden (25:21.197)
lyrics from songs, things that remind me of his love for me and his closeness to me. So that is, that has been a definite.
Jenae Dryden (25:33.343)
I mean, I wouldn’t say I didn’t know those things before, but I’m experiencing them with greater depth because of this challenge for this fiery trial, you might say. Yeah, Jill likes to say in our group that our Friday morning group, we are about Jaro, which is joy and sorrow. So we have a lot of laughter, a lot of joy with each other and about our lives and
Ellie Ledin (25:39.33)
Hmm.
Ellie Ledin (25:44.044)
Yeah.
Ellie Ledin (25:54.062)
Mmm.
Jenae Dryden (26:03.531)
whatever, but we also recognize that sorrow and grief and loss and pain and suffering is a huge part of many of our journeys. But those two are not separate, they go together so often. And I think that the title of that book, Consider it Pure Joy, when you face trials of many kinds. And so it’s the idea of joy and sorrow together, joy and trials.
Ellie Ledin (26:04.462)
Mm-hmm.
Ellie Ledin (26:17.678)
Mm-hmm.
Ellie Ledin (26:25.422)
Mm-hmm.
Jenae Dryden (26:29.843)
And you can experience joy in the trials and in the suffering, which is amazing. And I’m just going to shout out to that group. There’s, there’s no other community I’ve ever been a part of that gets that so well and embraces it, celebrates it, reminds each other of it. So one lady in our group actually had it tattooed onto her arm. Her husband died of ALS and she has the word Jaro tattooed on her arm.
Ellie Ledin (26:44.174)
Mm.
Ellie Ledin (26:53.068)
Wow.
Hmm.
Mm.
Jenae Dryden (26:59.401)
It’s just really encouraging and beautiful to be a part of a community like that. I’m so grateful.
Ellie Ledin (27:06.638)
Yeah, and it kind of reminds me of something that
the CEO of Inheritance of Hope, Aaron Hedges, has pointed out and he says the fighting versus surrendering language, you know, when we we hear fight language a lot in relationship to illness, like yes, like fighting the disease, we’re gonna beat it, someone lost their battle, and exactly what you said, we talked so much about jarrow joy in sorrow, not
Jenae Dryden (27:15.467)
Cancer and disease. Yeah.
Jenae Dryden (27:38.253)
Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Ellie Ledin (27:40.939)
joy when I get out of this. You know, on the other side, man, I’m in the thick of it and it’s not possible until I’m out. So like, what if instead of I’m fighting this right now, like I am surrendering to this because it’s just another season.
to experience the Lord in a different way that I’ve never experienced before. And even you pointed out, you know, your husband is different, your kids are different, you are different. What, yeah, could you talk a little bit more about that? What differences have you seen in your family because of these hardships?
Jenae Dryden (28:04.607)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, I think we kind of had an identity as being very competent in our own strength and being able to control everything.
Ellie Ledin (28:31.883)
Hmm.
Jenae Dryden (28:32.395)
Now we have some really important lessons in our life prior to this that helped us realize we are not in control, which has been healthy and good for us. But I’d say that, especially for my husband, he just seems, it’s ironic, but he seems more, he seems less anxious, more relaxed about our future, about his future, about our kid’s future than he ever did before.
Ellie Ledin (28:39.022)
Mm.
Jenae Dryden (29:02.733)
Because he just knows like, I can’t control this. You know, and it’s not because I’m doing so well. It’s because he knows that it is all out of, so many things are out of his hands. And we just have to be faithful and do what we can with what we’re given in the moment. And I think, yeah, I don’t like the battle language for cancer either, but I…
Ellie Ledin (29:06.273)
Yeah.
Jenae Dryden (29:31.913)
I would say that we fight for joy, we fight for hope, we fight for a deeper relationship with God and growth in our character. So those are things we still are striving for. And I don’t know if like fight’s the right word. I haven’t really used that before just talking to you just now, but when I’m thinking about what am I fighting for? I mean, I am working on being really healthy. I don’t want my cancer to come.
Ellie Ledin (29:35.406)
Mm-hmm.
Ellie Ledin (29:49.582)
Yeah.
Jenae Dryden (30:01.525)
right? But I don’t think of it as a battle to be won. I’m trying to steward my time and my resources and the privilege of, you know, getting to be here in this time and place, to be as healthy as I can for whatever God has for me, for however long he has for me.
Ellie Ledin (30:01.71)
Mm-hmm.
Jenae Dryden (30:29.515)
And I think about my kids and they are just, have just such a different level of maturity about what really matters in life. I mean, they value.
Ellie Ledin (30:41.518)
Mm.
Jenae Dryden (30:46.977)
Deep and close relationships with people. They’re not shallow kids, you know. They understand about grief, so they’re empathetic and compassionate.
Ellie Ledin (30:54.702)
Mm.
Jenae Dryden (31:06.753)
They too have definitely grown closer in their relationship with God and have a deeper prayer life and are pressing in. They’re pressing into what’s good and what’s true and to the relationship with God. So I’m just so grateful for that.
Ellie Ledin (31:29.218)
Yeah, well and for your husband to have even more release of control of the future, again, was probably not by choice, because I feel like as humans it’s our desire to have some control, familiarity, sense of normal, but it, not to diminish, you know, what he’s been through, what you’ve been through, your family, but it is probably a sense of being free from the illusion.
Jenae Dryden (31:39.947)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Ellie Ledin (31:57.707)
That it’s his to control anyways, you know, like you and your husband like can move through life already being certain that, yeah, I can be a good steward and it does it does matter how I show up and yet ultimately it is out of my hands what happens so I don’t have to work so hard to try to make to have a more secured illusion.
Jenae Dryden (32:10.383)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Ellie Ledin (32:25.738)
Your illusion kind of was broken, it sounds like. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I know you’ve mentioned being in the Friday gathering, Hope at Home group. What other ways have you been plugged into Inheritance of Hope and how did you find Inheritance of Hope, actually?
Jenae Dryden (32:36.781)
Yeah. So Way back when I was getting treatments, post diagnosis, think I was either in or finished with radiation treatments and finally getting my head above water. And just like
Google searching, what resources are there out there for families? And I had never heard of Inheritance of Hope. It’s not really well known out in the Northwest at all. And just, it came up like as a, I can’t even remember, but it was just like a link that I found, Inheritance of Hope. I clicked on it, took me to the website, and I immediately saw that it was faith-based, not like faith exclusive, like you didn’t have to have
Ellie Ledin (33:06.382)
Hmm.
Ellie Ledin (33:33.934)
Yeah.
Jenae Dryden (33:34.303)
a certain kind of faith to participate in or benefit from Inheritance of Hope. But that was a unique thing for me because I had been in a support group through my healthcare provider and it definitely isn’t faith-based. There was also a local in-person family support group in Portland that we were going to, but honestly it was kind of discouraging for me.
so anyway, seeing this and I think what, you know, initially drew my eye was, were the retreats. And I’m like, this sounds like a really cool thing for our family. I think the retreat coming up was the first Nashville retreat that you guys did. And we’d never been to Nashville and I’m like, this sounds really fun. Look at this place. There’s a water park. was like talking to that to my kids and they’re a little bit like, you know, they were teenagers, you know, they’re not like.
know and but then like we kept talking about it and they’re like yeah let’s let’s let’s sign up let’s try let’s apply and and so we got in it was probably just a couple months before the retreat and we went and we had a blast it was a it was a really fun time just
Ellie Ledin (34:34.316)
Yeah.
Jenae Dryden (34:56.855)
Just making memories as a family. It was a beautiful resort. You know, we had a lot of fun together. I loved all the legacy information and liked the pullout groups with the other patients, with the other adults. The facilitators did a great job. There were no other people with brain cancer on the retreat. So it wasn’t that like, I didn’t have anyone
Ellie Ledin (35:06.734)
Mm.
Jenae Dryden (35:25.033)
else there who was like, yeah, you’re going through what I’m going through. But all of them were faced with a terminal diagnosis. Many of them had cancer. I’d say most of them were probably in a harder situation than I was physically at the time. I probably had one of the worst diagnoses as far as a prognosis. But as far as how I was functioning at that moment in time,
Ellie Ledin (35:32.078)
Mm.
Ellie Ledin (35:42.894)
Mm.
Jenae Dryden (35:53.141)
I was pretty good. Like we didn’t need a lot of support from our volunteers practically. But the emotional like, my goodness, we are young, youngish adults with children facing our death. That was the piece, you know, and being around other couples, grieving over that together, processing that together.
Ellie Ledin (35:57.785)
Sure.
Ellie Ledin (36:07.256)
Mm.
Ellie Ledin (36:10.926)
Mm.
Jenae Dryden (36:21.133)
seeing other spouses who were facing that with their loved one was very meaningful. So that meant a lot to me. I made some connections there. I met Jill on that retreat and I found out that she led the Friday family gathering. So I like had to retreat. Like as soon as the retreat was over, I signed up online for that because I’m like, I wanna keep seeing Jill. And I just knew it would be an encouraging time. I also signed up for
Ellie Ledin (36:36.43)
Mm.
Ellie Ledin (36:40.952)
haha
Hmm.
Yeah.
Jenae Dryden (36:50.785)
the Glioblastoma group, brain cancer online group. So I started going to that and that was really encouraging. So that was after we got home. I joined the Hope at Home groups, the GBM or Glioblastoma group and the Friday family gathering group. So the GBM group actually had a few people in it that had had
Ellie Ledin (37:02.114)
Mm, sure.
Jenae Dryden (37:19.725)
brain cancer, Glioblastoma, for many years. And at the time, like, I didn’t know anyone, you know, who had Glioblastoma or who had survived more than a couple of years. so, I was like, wow. So that gave me a lot of hope. And there was this one woman in particular who had lived for 20 years and she was so inspiring. She had had many recurrences and many treatments and
Ellie Ledin (37:24.12)
Wow.
Yeah.
Ellie Ledin (37:33.55)
Hmm.
Ellie Ledin (37:43.798)
Wow.
Jenae Dryden (37:49.685)
surgeries and she was kind of at one of the best hospitals in the country in San Francisco. But she was so full of hope, so encouraging to people in the group. She did pass away about a year and a half ago, which was really hard. And there have been a number of people in that group since I started that have died. And it’s really hard to see that progression.
leading to death in the group members. And the thing about brain cancer is that it’s so different for each person, depending on where your cancer is. It could be mainly physical. It could be cognitive or emotional. It could be someone who like literally cannot speak or understand what’s going on. So there’s so many ways it presents itself. And so it’s really scary because you
Ellie Ledin (38:20.43)
Mm-hmm.
Ellie Ledin (38:28.174)
Mm.
Jenae Dryden (38:45.749)
you kind of have an idea of where it’s going to come back, but it could come back anywhere in your brain, really. And so it’s, it’s really, that was really, that’s been really hard for me. but at the same time, there’s been some really encouraging, it’s encouraging to see how people are facing the end of their life with strength and courage and hope, how their caregivers support them and keep functioning after they’re gone. Like I’ve
Ellie Ledin (38:50.434)
Wow.
Ellie Ledin (39:14.958)
Hmm.
Jenae Dryden (39:15.379)
I’ve got to see that, how a widow or a widower has continued to move on and not just move on, but like live with purpose and that kind of thing. So that’s encouraging to me. And just like being with people who get it.
Ellie Ledin (39:31.352)
Mm.
Ellie Ledin (39:41.122)
Mm-hmm.
Jenae Dryden (39:41.485)
We talk a lot about practical stuff too like what treatments did you have or where did you get care or have you heard of this or what do you do about this side effect or symptom and things like that? So that’s helpful the Friday group, you know, we we pray together every week. I love I love praying for them. I love that they pray for me We are very real with each other, you know from depression to diarrhea to
Ellie Ledin (40:10.383)
You
Jenae Dryden (40:11.135)
I mean, anything, you know, like just like severe grief and fear. We talk about things unrelated to cancer or, you know, like, will you please pray for my brother who just had a heart attack? You know, like you just bring in so much and these people have become dear friends and I’ve actually met a number of them in person. So that’s been really sweet. My mom joined that group.
Ellie Ledin (40:12.91)
Mm.
Ellie Ledin (40:30.658)
Yeah.
Jenae Dryden (40:41.193)
which was so encouraging to her. And let me tell you, it meets at 7 a.m. on the West Coast and she is not a morning person. I am, but she’s not. And she shows up almost every week and she is so encouraged. And I think it’s just really helped her kind of grapple with my journey and my diagnosis because it’s been really hard for her. So that’s been really sweet.
Ellie Ledin (40:41.355)
Ugh.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Ellie Ledin (41:03.426)
Mm. Yeah.
Ellie Ledin (41:10.402)
Yeah.
Jenae Dryden (41:10.567)
relationships, the encouragement. I like to think of these groups as like a dose of medicine or an infusion that I get every week that just keeps me going, keeps me healthy. It’s not like a cancer treatment, but it’s a treatment for my soul that keeps me going. And yeah, it’s not something a doctor would prescribe, but I think they should.
Ellie Ledin (41:30.092)
Hmm.
Ellie Ledin (41:36.654)
Mm.
Ellie Ledin (41:40.193)
Yeah, right. That’s a part of the psychosocial care, which is so vital to someone’s overall health. And yeah, and I love that the Friday gatherings, it’s a Hope at Home group that is open to anybody, you know? Yeah. So you don’t have to be, you don’t have to have a diagnosis. You don’t have to be the child of someone diagnosed like you can join and you should. And it’s so interesting when you’re talking about
Jenae Dryden (41:40.586)
Thanks.
Jenae Dryden (41:44.045)
Mm hmm. Yeah.
Jenae Dryden (41:55.187)
Anyone.
Jenae Dryden (42:00.384)
Mm-hmm.
Jenae Dryden (42:04.847)
Mm-hmm.
Ellie Ledin (42:09.346)
being in the GBM group and if someone is listening and they hear like, why do you show up to a group where, you know, you have experienced the death of people that I’m sure you’ve gotten close to week after week. And I think that kind of just goes back to that Jaro. It’s not that things are joyful all the time and wow, you have this greater relationship with Christ and that’s amazing. It’s like, yeah, that is so present, but man, there’s.
Jenae Dryden (42:11.933)
Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. No. Mm hmm.
Ellie Ledin (42:38.584)
heartache, but as you were describing, I felt like it was just a, it’s a sacred place where, yeah, you can experience closeness with people in any season. Like for you, someone who’s been given a timeline and have exceeded that timeline and you know, you’re doing well, and then other people who are nearing the end of their life and everyone in between, like that is so beautiful.
Jenae Dryden (42:39.761)
Yeah. It really is. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jenae Dryden (43:03.899)
Yeah. 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.
Ellie Ledin (43:08.642)
hard, but man, that’s sacred.
Jenae Dryden (43:29.901)
Who’s just going through just immense pain or suffering. And it is like chilling, you know, there’s just these chilling moments where you just see the brightness of God’s presence with us. On Friday, we often say that like Jesus is on our Zoom call. He’s one of these little boxes in the corner, you you can’t see him, but he’s here with us. And we definitely
Ellie Ledin (43:39.576)
Mm.
Ellie Ledin (43:53.934)
Mm.
Jenae Dryden (43:59.489)
feel that most weeks. We just love each other so much too. It’s amazing how that can happen on a Zoom call.
Ellie Ledin (44:01.806)
Hmm.
Ellie Ledin (44:11.992)
Right? And just even the way you’re talking about it is so compelling, right? That if someone is listening and is in a season that is so isolating, where their life was going one way and then now this illness just completely threw them off the trajectory they were going, like what would you say to someone who is hesitant about trying Inheritance of Hope, whether as a family served?
Jenae Dryden (44:17.163)
No.
Jenae Dryden (44:22.263)
Mm-hmm.
Jenae Dryden (44:27.469)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. No, I have a friend who has the same diagnosis as me.
Ellie Ledin (44:38.06)
or even as a volunteer or someone to give financially to make these resources free for people who are diagnosed.
Jenae Dryden (44:54.905)
And he’s been very reluctant to do anything like this because it’s very hard for him to face the reality of it, you know, and these faces do, they like force you to confront it. It’s right there in your face. And so it’s difficult, but I feel like the beauty of it outweighs that hard.
Ellie Ledin (45:23.022)
Mm.
Jenae Dryden (45:24.063)
And that’s true of so many things, like when you give birth, it’s incredibly painful, but it’s worth it. It’s a beautiful gift that you receive at the end of that. So yeah, like I get that it’s hard to face these sad things. And you probably do need to be cognizant of your own
emotional mental health and what you need and what season you’re at.
For me, I feel like if I had the…
maybe the internal foundation from my faith, from my community, my previous experiences walking through hard things that help me keep going when it’s really sad and hard. But I won’t lie, like there have been times like I get off those calls and I am like crying, weeping, crying out to God like, why are you letting this happen to her?
Ellie Ledin (46:34.157)
Hmm.
Ellie Ledin (46:40.034)
Mm-mm.
Jenae Dryden (46:40.407)
But I feel like that’s part of it too. God wants us to be so real and raw with him. And I don’t want to just live in a pretend happy life that’s not real. That’s not what this world is. This world is full of suffering. And we, I feel like so many people, and at least in my community, are so like sheltered from them. And we can shelter ourselves from them.
Ellie Ledin (46:52.718)
Mm.
Ellie Ledin (47:05.902)
Hmm.
Jenae Dryden (47:09.485)
And so being part of these communities where it’s like, oh yeah, it’s hard. This is painful. I didn’t want this to happen. I thought I did everything right.
Ellie Ledin (47:18.168)
Mm-hmm.
Jenae Dryden (47:21.387)
You know, it’s real. Like, I don’t want to live, you know, in the matrix where it’s, you know, like, just, you know, I want real and I want vulnerable and I want God and I want, you know, His, in His presence is fullness of joy, no matter your circumstances. So, yeah, that’s what I would say. Yeah, it’s hard, but it’s real.
Ellie Ledin (47:29.87)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Ellie Ledin (47:38.286)
Hmm.
Ellie Ledin (47:50.926)
Hmm.
Jenae Dryden (47:51.125)
And you get to experience this deep community and joy through the real and the hard and the wrong.
Ellie Ledin (47:59.203)
Hmm. Yeah, I mean you just named something so profound, right? Because I think a lot of us, unless we are shaken up by something like a diagnosis or a loss in our family or something super devastating, we’re like little pack rats trying to like shelter ourselves like…
Jenae Dryden (48:09.302)
and
Jenae Dryden (48:15.419)
Yeah.
Ellie Ledin (48:20.126)
through consumerism, through distraction, like how can we pad ourselves the most to be removed from pain and suffering? And sometimes we’re just shaken by it, like everything is stripped away, like we’ve talked about throughout this whole call, yeah, and there just is something so profound when you move from that into the raw, real
Jenae Dryden (48:41.925)
Yeah.
Ellie Ledin (48:46.882)
Gospel because that is the gospel of like Jesus came left like the heavenly realm and this glory that we can’t even imagine to come into a human body and experience
a painful death and mockery and all these things, like that is the gospel. Like you are living the gospel as you are entering into these hard things and accepting like, yeah, it’s hard. I’m struggling with this. I have so much grief that this is my story or this is happening to someone else. And that that’s okay. Like there’s room for that. But I just really applaud your bravery and
Jenae Dryden (49:04.331)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. And it might not, you might not be ready for it. It might not be the right time for you and that’s okay. And I think the retreats are a great place to kind of start and see what this community is sort of like. And you do get great memories.
Ellie Ledin (49:30.708)
your ability to do what a lot of people are scared to do.
Jenae Dryden (49:56.141)
You’re really inspired to be intentional with the time you have left. I think that’s really what helped me Or that helped me a lot. I did a legacy video shortly after the retreat. I’m so thankful I did that so thankful and You know the groups just take it kind of another step in and being committed and Yeah, walking the path of suffering which was Jesus’s path
And a lot of people didn’t like that. You know, even his own friends didn’t like that. They’re like, no, this isn’t the way.
Ellie Ledin (50:31.118)
Hmm. Yeah. It is. Yeah. Wow, that’s so good. And I want to end with a question that we end the podcast with all of our guests with is…
Jenae Dryden (50:32.855)
But it is, it is the way.
Jenae Dryden (50:44.108)
Mmm.
Ellie Ledin (50:46.19)
whose legacy has impacted you, whether in their life, their death, or just in general, yeah. Because legacy is something that sounds like you’re really intentional about, you made a legacy video, all these things, but like, who has almost passed the baton on to you through their legacy?
Jenae Dryden (50:48.205)
Yeah. Yeah. I’m going to say my grandma, Barbara Pruitt, she was alive when I was diagnosed. She had dementia and it slowly got worse over the last
you know, over the next couple years and she passed away, let’s see, almost two years ago now. One or two years, I don’t remember. But anyway, she, you know, it was very, she was very close to my family. Like she was sort of more than just a grandma to me. We sometimes lived with her or on the same street as her and
Ellie Ledin (51:38.254)
Mm.
Jenae Dryden (51:44.287)
She was just a very strong and spunky and faithful woman of God. And she and my grandpa really started my family on their journey of following Christ. So I’m really grateful for their legacy of making a decision to follow Jesus and raise their kids to follow Jesus, who then raised me to follow Jesus. And she was just this.
Ellie Ledin (51:56.814)
Hmm.
Ellie Ledin (52:08.269)
Hmm.
Jenae Dryden (52:11.635)
Amazing prayer warrior and I kind of realized this more after her death. She had these journals that had in which she wrote prayers for all of her family members. And I have one or I had one that was a period of time when I was, I think it was the summer after my senior year of high school and we lived on the same street and we went on a number of little family
vacations together. And I think every single one of my cousins had come into town or they went and visited during that period of time. And she had written down prayers for every single one of us. And that just really, and then I got to, she and my grandpa died within a few months of each other. So they had like a shared memorial service and I got to write their eulogy and help.
Ellie Ledin (52:54.254)
Jenae Dryden (53:08.193)
deliver it with my siblings, which was incredibly special and meaningful. But just like preparing that and thinking about that was all about their legacy, right? Like their lives and how they lived and how they invested in us. And I just really, really appreciate the way they faithfully prayed for us and loved us. And I feel like I’m trying to do that for my children and nieces and nephews and friends and
group members. I consider myself like a follower of her in the area of prayer. So, I think that’s what I would say.
Ellie Ledin (53:47.214)
Mm.
Ellie Ledin (53:51.075)
Yeah. and that sounds like you would be so blessed by her prayers before diagnosis, but especially afterwards and just like a woman who has seen you through so many seasons of life and getting to just experience not just, this is a nice woman, but man, this is a prayer warrior who is like lifting me before the throne of God in her prayers and yeah.
Jenae Dryden (53:57.453)
Mm-hmm.
Jenae Dryden (54:03.821)
Mm-hmm.
Jenae Dryden (54:15.565)
I just have a quick story about that. So the Thanksgiving before my surgery, so it just like a week before my surgery maybe or a couple days, we had our Thanksgiving dinner at my parents’ house and my grandma was there. And like I said, she had dementia and she at that point was having a really hard time communicating because of her dementia.
Ellie Ledin (54:36.622)
Hmm.
Jenae Dryden (54:45.127)
she could like answer little questions, but she could not tell coherent stories or really even speak coherent sentences very well. But we were getting ready to eat and she just calls out at the table, pray for Janee. And so I said, Grandma, do you want to pray? She’s like, yeah. And she went on to pray this powerful, beautiful, coherent prayer for me.
Ellie Ledin (55:02.606)
you
Ellie Ledin (55:14.562)
Wow.
Jenae Dryden (55:14.701)
We were all just like looking around the table, like where did that come from? Like just the spirit of God landed on her and she was able to speak and pray. And that’s just such a powerful story to me that like that was just, you know, just an overflow of her whole life of praying for Janae, praying for my sister, my brother, my mom, my dad, her, all her grandchildren. And she knew that I was facing something really scary and it could take my life. And
Ellie Ledin (55:19.714)
Yeah.
Ellie Ledin (55:23.598)
Mm.
Ellie Ledin (55:33.464)
Hmm.
Ellie Ledin (55:40.802)
Mm.
Ellie Ledin (55:45.58)
Yeah,
Jenae Dryden (55:46.177)
Here I am. I delivered her eulogy. She wasn’t at my funeral.
Ellie Ledin (55:51.899)
Mmm, right. Which is sad, of course, the loss of someone so special to you, but like how beautiful that, yeah, her prayers, yeah, right. Mmm.
Jenae Dryden (55:58.381)
Mm-hmm.
It worked out that way. She lived to like to be 92 or 91. like she had a full beautiful life. So did my grandpa. So did my other grandma who died the same year. So it was, I was like, Oh my goodness, I made it to all their funerals. I was afraid they’d have to go to mine and that would be so sad for them.
Ellie Ledin (56:11.342)
Hmm.
Ellie Ledin (56:16.194)
Yeah.
Right. Yeah. What was your grandma’s name? Barbara. Well, I think we could all strive to be a little bit more like a Barbara in the world and in our prayer life and bless others the way that she’s, yeah, just blessed you and her legacy has continued to impact you throughout the years. Well, Jenae, it’s been such a privilege to hear your story and yeah.
Jenae Dryden (56:23.807)
Bye, breath.
Jenae Dryden (56:32.725)
Yeah.
Jenae Dryden (56:39.669)
Mm-hmm.
Ellie Ledin (56:48.684)
I get to ask you questions and almost just, yeah, give you a platform to share this with other people who will, I guarantee you will resonate with your story and find hope and inspiration through the way that you’ve chosen to approach hardships. Yeah, so thank you so much for your time.
Jenae Dryden (57:06.445)
Thank you, Ellie. It’s been a pleasure and I’m really thankful to be here.
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