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Transcription:
A lot of you have been asking about how my wife, Laura has been doing recovering from brain surgery to remove a cancerous tumor. So today’s episode’s going to be a quick update on that as well as an update on a change to the channel going forward. First, an update on Laura. So there are many types of brain tumors and I want to give you a little bit of a background on that before I talk about the recent results of the genetic testing that was done on the tumor removed from Laura’s brain. So Laura had a glioma, which is a cancerous brain tumor. Grade one gliomas are the easiest to treat, and grade four is basically terminal. About 55% of gliomas are glioblastomas or grade four cancers. These have about a 5% five-year survival rate. Laura’s tumor did not look like a glioblastoma before they went in, but there was a small chance that it was a genetic grade four that had not developed yet.
Next, there are astrocytomas, which are about 25% of gliomas. These are a little bit better, but they still only have about a 45% five year survival rate. And then we have oligo dendro gliomas. These make up the other 10% and then those other random gliomas and tumors that round everything out. The tumor type that responds the best to treatment would be the grade two oligo dendro gliomas because they grow much slower than a grade three. This is especially the case with these particular tumors that have an IDH mutant gene that can be targeted with new IDH inhibitor drugs. So I want to thank you all so much for your prayers because Laura has this particular kind of tumor and it’s comparatively rare. It makes up only about two to 8% of all gliomas and it has an 80 to 90% five-year survival rate. So I truly believe that this was God working in our lives and that all of your prayers were very helpful, so thank you for that.
On a personal note, Laura says that she’s also so thankful for everyone’s prayers, everyone volunteering to help and she’s praying for all of you as well. Right now she’s resting a lot because she gets tired easily, like her brain is still trying to heal and she’s working very hard to recover her speech. She says that she basically feels like a kid again because she has to do these first and second grade workbooks to practice speaking. She can read everything in her mind and she can say in her mind all of the words that she sees, but the pathways in her speech center were disrupted when the tumor was removed. So Laura has to work really hard to just regrow new pathways. Laura also says that she has a new understanding of what Jesus meant when he said that unless you’re like a little child, you won’t enter the kingdom of heaven.
Just as little kids have to practice their words over and over and over again and you keep getting it wrong, they keep getting it wrong over and over and it can be so frustrating. We too have to persevere in holiness even though we will sin over and over and over and we get things wrong, and it’ll be frustrating being a little child who receives the kingdom of God. It doesn’t mean you have to be this pure and spotless perfect cheric child. It means you painfully learn lessons and holiness through repetition over and over again without giving up on God. And ultimately that is the path to holiness that we all have to walk. So once again, we’re thankful for your prayers and please keep praying for us, especially today as we meet with an oncologist to discuss Laura’s treatment options going forward. Ideally, she’s not going to need chemotherapy or radiation.
All of the tumor was excise. That’s another evidence of God’s providence and your prayers being so helpful. Hopefully instead of chemotherapy, she can just use these new inhibitor drugs. And I want to say I’m very grateful for your support, not just of the Council of Trent but of Catholic Answers because we would be in a real bind without the health insurance. Catholic Answers provides us these new inhibitor drugs that are going to greatly extend Laura’s life. They cost about $32,000 a month, but they should be covered under our health insurance. So thank you so much for the support that’s allowed me to provide for my family during this difficult time. I’m also grateful for the many people who came forward to support us at our Patreon, especially since I had to cancel most of my speaking events because I can’t leave Laura alone do the risk of her having a seizure.
This includes people that I’ve been critical of in the past who now have come forward to support me and ask others to support me. For example, one person wrote me the following. He said, I’m really glad to support you during this time and I hope my support will encourage you to stop attacking traditional Catholics. Now, here’s my response to that. I am grateful for this man’s support and for everyone’s prayers and support, and I don’t want to attack anyone. However, I want to build up people’s faith, and so if anyone Catholic or non-Catholic is causing people to stumble or fall into error, then I need to say something. However, going forward, I want the Council of Trent to be a channel where you enjoy watching the content. Even if you disagree with me, I want you to see my content as constructive criticism and critique, not some kind of unfair attack on others.
Now, some people view all criticism as an unfair attack, so I can’t really help people with that kind of mindset. However, I can put forward critiques that do their best to fairly understand the position I’m engaging and offer a charitable reply to that position and to help me do that, I’m going to be enlisting outside referees to review my scripts in the coming weeks and months to help them be as fair and accurate as possible. Other people will join the team in the future. But for now, redeem Zoomer has agreed to help me review scripts on Protestantism. Joe Schmidt from Majesty of Reason will help review scripts on non theism. Jacob Hansen will help review on Mormonism and Eric salmons from the Catholic Publication Crisis Magazine will help review scripts that engage traditional Catholicism. This may result in me taking longer to address certain topics, but I’d rather put out delayed episodes with quality that I’m proud of than Slop that just tries to gain the algorithm by being first to address a controversial issue.
Now, obviously these reviewers may disagree with some of my conclusions, but the goal will be to craft episodes where we at least agree on the nature of the position being critiqued and that fair arguments are presented against that position and that way I hope that everyone who has agreed to financially support the Council of Trent, we’ll continue to do that because they see the value in this channel, even in spite of our disagreements. And I’m also excited as Laura gets better to invite more people out to the studio here in Dallas to have productive face-to-face conversations. As I said before, I’m grateful for everyone who’s supporting us@trenthornpodcast.com because I’ve had to cancel many events due to Laura’s diagnosis, but I did keep one event on the schedule. Laura’s parents will be staying with us in a month so that I can be free to attend the annual Catholic Answers Conference, September 25th, the 28th held in San Diego, California.
It’s an event I really enjoy, and this year we have a lot of other great speakers as well as a special meet and greet for patrons of the Council of Trend and maybe some unofficial jiujitsu grappling sessions. If you happen to bring a rash guard with you, I really wanted to be at this event to personally thank our supporters and meet all the people who support what we do at Catholic Answers. If you want to join us, tickets are still available@catholicanswersconference.com, just use the promo code ca Friend 25 to get a hundred dollars off. So once again, thank you all so much for your prayers and financial support during this time, and I’m really excited how God used even this difficult trial to improve the Council of Trent and help us to edify and evangelize millions of people Right now. We reach about 2 million people every month, and I’m hoping with your support we’ll reach even more than that. I’m really excited about what the future holds for my family and for this channel, and I’m just thankful for everyone’s support, and I hope you have a very blessed day.