Brain Cancer Support: Free The Forgotten

Preface: This story is not just about cancer, or even about hardship—it's about what happens when help runs out and a mother’s courage isn’t enough to overcome crushing realities alone.

“The Caged Nightingale” is part of our larger journey at Emily’s Place The One: bearing witness to women who so often become invisible, and working together to free them from what no one should have to carry alone. Courtney’s voice and her song remind us why every life matters, and why change begins with seeing the person who’s been forgotten.

It’s hard to imagine a woman with terminal brain cancer being forgotten. However, when needs surpass available governmental, community, and family support year after year, these women truly do fade into the background. This is primarily because they often can't advocate for themselves, combined with their desire to uplift others and connect normally when they have the energy to get out of the house.

Courtney desperately wants to make the years she has left with her five children memorable, but as a single mother confronting cancer, this goal has become nearly impossible. Over the past ten years, she has undergone two surgeries to remove a slow-growing tumor in her brain, which has impaired her ability to organize, clean, shop, cook, and plan. Ironically, when Courtney’s home is messy and disorganized, her struggles intensify, causing her to feel like a mere shell of herself. There has been no health crisis assistance to help her until now!

Will you join our campaign to free Courtney so she can focus on what she CAN do well, by collectively bearing the burden that crushes her?

Truly amazing family members, cherished children, and kindhearted church and community friends have warmed her heart and brought smiles and joy throughout the years, stepping up to make a difference and help when she struggles. They have all done their best to fill the void left by the underfunded, understaffed aging and disability services, which fall short in providing consistent community support for cancer patients through a reliable state caregiver.

Linked above is a song that Courtney wrote, composed, and performed. Though created before her cancer diagnosis, the full impact of her own words resonated deeply after she received her diagnosis.

HER SONG — Became the anthem for our “Defenders of The Vulnerable” (America’s Pain Refugees: Anthem To Their Cry) Advocacy Campaign , pain refugee is a label she hopes will no longer be around if severe intractable pain enters her journey.