As friends of Lisa, we want to support her and her family during this chapter of her life. It has been years of challenges thrown at Lisa and she has been poised and hopeful through each one. Many may not know this about her as she has been very private about her journey, but it is now time for us to bombard her with love and support!

After a long stretch of feeling unwell and “out of shape,” normally fit and active Lisa went into severe heart failure in 2022. She did everything she was told to do. She made major lifestyle changes, followed strict dietary guidelines, took her medications faithfully, saw every specialist, and had an internal defibrillator implanted. Her heart function slowly improved, but her symptoms did not. The crushing fatigue, body aches, headaches, and vision problems continued.

After years of being ping-ponged between doctors, frustrating appointments and tests where she was told she should be feeling better by now, Lisa made the choice to move back to Indiana from DC to be closer to family. Just days after her move, on Thanksgiving 2025, she went to the emergency room. The blindness in her left eye, previously attributed to heart failure, had worsened, her right eye was starting to fail, and she had an excruciating headache. She thought it might be a sinus infection. As she described it, it felt like someone was punching her in the face from inside her skull.

Doctors at Parkview Regional Medical Center in Fort Wayne, concerned she might be having a stroke, ordered a CT scan (frustratingly, the first of her entire medical journey). What they found instead was a mass in her brain roughly the size of a tennis ball. After extensive testing and consultations, Lisa was diagnosed with a very large pituitary macroadenoma.

The tumor had grown so large that it was pressing on her brain, invading her sinus cavities, and damaging surrounding structures. Because it involved the pituitary gland, it disrupted nearly every system in her body, contributing to serious problems with her heart, vision, joints, sinuses, thyroid, and overall health.

Yesterday, surgeons at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago performed a major operation, lasting 9 hours, to remove as much of the tumor as possible and to clear her sinus cavities. The surgery appears to have gone well, but a long recovery is expected to be difficult and painful, but with successful treatment, Lisa has a real chance to begin healing.

During these last few years, it has been difficult for Lisa to work and she has had to step away from her job. Years of medical appointments and this extensive surgery have added quite the financial burden on her and her family. Friends are asking for your help as her family will be traveling back and forth to Chicago for ongoing treatment, additional procedures, and follow up care as doctors address the remaining tumor and the long-term effects it has had on her body. We hope you can support her in some way. Thank you for caring for Lisa!