My brother and his fam­ily are bat­tling can­cer again: the third time for his 19-year-old step­daugh­ter, Lau­ren. Just over a year since my brother recov­ered from his own bout with tongue and throat can­cer.

Theirs is an inspir­ing story.

Lala, The Warrior Princess

They fight back with love and hope, with prayer­ful bless­ings from thou­sands of old and new friends and fam­ily. They use social net­work­ing to chan­nel the love and fuel my niece’s spir­its. My brother keeps us posted with his blog. While opti­mistic, they rec­og­nize that Lau­ren has begun a marathon, so they’re doing every­thing they can to stoke her fires and guide the energy in pro­duc­tive forms of heal­ing…

Last week they feared for Lauren’s life: the tumors had become so aggres­sive and inva­sive that they were chok­ing her very breath. It was a sud­den onset: she checked into the ICU 10 days ago with what might have been pneu­mo­nia, but was instead a recur­rence of nerve sheath can­cer, this time wrapped around her bronchia.

This is deadly seri­ous busi­ness, but my brother and his fam­ily look for affir­ma­tions of joy and well­ness wher­ever they can.

Thanks to what my brother calls her war­rior princess spirit, my niece fought back, regained con­trol over her breath­ing, and got her­self dis­charged from the hos­pi­tal. This week she’s recu­per­at­ing at home, and tak­ing calls from Lyle Lovett and other celebri­ties who are inspired by her story. (She reacts as only a teenager would…)

No one on her med­ical team would have believed this to be pos­si­ble last week. Her oncol­o­gist can only ascribe it to a mir­a­cle of love and com­mu­nity — the power of the human spirit — rather than the won­ders of med­ical sci­ence.

Lala Needs You

You can help too. Join Lala, “the war­rior princess,” and shower her with love and hope­ful bless­ings. Join her Face­book group… Pray for her.

Ded­i­cate your yoga prac­tice to her.

You’ll be amazed at what might hap­pen.