Joey Feek of Joey + Rory Decides to Cease Cancer Treatment

“Sometimes there just aren’t enough surgeries or doctors or chemotherapies or prayers. And you have to wipe the tears from your cheeks and say the words that you were hoping to never have to say”¦

Enough.”

This was the heartbreaking, devastating news that fans and followers of the traditional country and bluegrass duo Joey + Rory, and people beyond the music community who had been following their tragic story woke up to on Friday morning (10-23). Joey Feek—the wife of Rory Lee Feek, and mother of one-year-old Indiana Feek, is ending her battle with stage IV colorectal cancer. After surgery in July and five weeks of radiation treatment, the Cancer has returned, and been deemed terminal.

photo: Bryan Allen
photo: Bryan Allen

“’I’m sorry to have to tell you this”¦’  That’s how the conversation began,” Rory said in a blog post Friday morning. “Then the doctor explained that the scans revealed that two quarter-sized tumors have already grown back in the same area that they had been blasting daily with chemo and radiation. And that many more smaller tumors were visible all throughout the abdominal region.  She said that the cancer was aggressively spreading in spite of all they’ve been doing.”

“So we did what you do when the medicine isn’t working, and the doctors are at a loss”¦and when the ‘statistics” say you can do more chemo, but it will only buy you a little time”¦We came home.

Not to die.  But to live.”

Joey Feek was first diagnosed with cervical Cancer shortly after the birth of the couple’s daughter Indiana in June of 2014. Indiana was born with Down Syndrome. But Joey and Rory’s faith never wavered, despite their story unfolding like a tragedy whose every next turn became more unbelievable and tragic than the one before.

“To say my wife is broken-hearted is an understatement,” Rory continued. “And to tell you that we’re not scared would be a lie.  This is the kind of thing that happens to somebody else, not us. But then I have to remember”¦ we are somebody else to somebody else.”

Joey + Rory released seven studio albums, and in 2010 won Top New Vocal Duo of the Year at the ACM Awards. They were also nominated for Top Vocal Duo three times by the ACM’s, and twice by the CMA’s. A favorite among traditional country fans and country fans of faith, their music and story has inspired many, and continues to despite Friday’s news.

“It’s hard for me to feel slighted, when I know that the career that Joey and I have had this amazing last 7 years or so has only been, because God reached out His powerful hand and chose us,” Rory says. “He lifted us up from our little farm. and let us see and do things beyond our wildest dreams.  And you can’t be in awe of an amazing road that God leads you down, and then be any less in awe of a corner that He has you turn.

We ask for your prayers too. For a miracle. And even more so, for peace with His decision.

That is enough.”

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