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Lisa Speer  is a dear friend of mine and I wanted to post this for all my friends who know her.

Richard Moody

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If you have any Lisa memorabilia, it now would be the time to have it autographed by her, because let us tell you, she has become a (more) famous person within the walls of the Mayo Clinic today.

She had a very busy day down there.  Jackie took her down this afternoon for some pulmonary (lung) tests and to meet with her oncologist.  Leave it to our Lisa to be the first patient in 30 years at the Mayo Clinic to stump them with this particular issue.

She is allergic to Taxol (her chemo drug).  Her doctor has never seen this type of allergic reaction to Taxol in his 30 years of practice.  We always knew our Lisa was special.

Ok, so what this means……they told her she has pulmonary toxicity (basically chemo ‘pneumonia’) from the Taxol.   The great news is that no permanent lung damage has occurred so she can fully recover from it and there will be no long term affects.

She learned also that this does not knock her out of the case study and she will continue with that medication every three weeks down at Mayo until the end of June.  She will still undergo her radiation in rochester.

As you can imagine, she is a roller coaster of emotions this afternoon. She will have 100 more questions before she gets back to River Falls and trust us, she get them answered on Tuesday when she returns to Mayo.

They started her on a steroid that they assured her would help her feel better within a few days, her hair will start to come back and we’ll be sure to post photos of the bandanna burning party when it happens!

I appreciate very much all of you reaching out to her last time when I posted, so I’m going to come back at you again – there are not enough words to tell all of you how much your words mean to her.  It takes you five minutes to post on her caringbrige site and it carries her throughout an entire day.  Pretty good rate of return if you ask me.

She was very concerned that all of you get an update as soon as possible as she’s not felt good enough to update since yesterday morning.  She’s exhausted. She’s not sleeping.  But, we are force feeding liquids and food and there is light at the end of the tunnel.  So, if you don’t hear from her right away or she doesn’t answer your call – leave a message, leave a post, she’ll get to it, trust us.

UPDATE FROM LISA:
I am going to ‘chime in for a minute: by now most of you know of the scary 2.5 weeks I have had and the startling news I received from mayo. in both regards – chemo – and pulmonary pneumonia. some of the pulmonary tests indicated that i was only getting 35% oxygen at times. my oncologist said he had not seen this in his 30 years of practice and that had this condition been left as it, we would have been looking at pulmonary fibrosis and eventual death sooner than later. i tell you this because one thing cancer and this past 4 months has taught me and i want to pass on to you is how important it is to be your own health advocate, for you or for your loved one. if you do not like the answer, result, doctor, or what ever – BE PRESISTANT!!!!! FIGHT THEM, GET THE ANSWERS, YOU KNOW WHEN SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT AND PUSH UNTIL YOU ARE HAPPY AND FEEL THAT ALL HAS BEEN DONE THAT CAN AND SHOULD BE DONE! WE ARE WORTH IT!

Okay, I am done with that soap box.

Slowly, I am getting little bits of strength back and I mean little, but that is great.  I even found a few hairs on my legs!! not to mention a little bit of ‘stubble’ on my head. I might not have to work on tanning it after all.

I will ‘chime out’ for now and leave you with the harley davidson thought for the day: THE WORLD STANDS ASIDE TO LET ANYONE PASS WHO KNOWS WHERE HE IS GOING.

I know where I am going, I hope you do too.  Thankyou my nwa/delta family for your cards, calls, emails and vacation donations. each and all are very special to me as you are. they really do carry me through my sometimes long days.   fly safe.

Good Night

xoxox Lisa
~ always lean into the curve ~
www.caringbridge.org/visit/lisaspeer1