Battling brain cancer: community supports Delmar woman
Lori Gillespie says,” They cut me from here all the way around my side. I think they said almost three pounds.”
Gillespie is talking about her surgery from back in May of 2014. She tells 47 ABC she had a tumor in her skull for four years and didn’t know. Doctors finally discovered it was cancer.
Donna Bowers, a friend of Gillespie’s says, “She had radiation last year. This past March she found out that it came back. In April she had surgery again, but they realized there were some blood vessels around it, so they can’t remove it.”
That means Lori will have to consistently get treated. Right now there is no cure. With that news, Donna and Doug Bowers, who are good friends of Lori’s, stepped in. The Bowers planned a benefit at the American Legion in Salisbury Saturday to help the single mother take of not only herself, but her family.
Gillespie continues, “I never dreamed anything like this would ever happen. It’s just overwhelming. I didn’t know this was going to happen.”
Doug Bowers goes on, “I couldn’t be as strong as she is right now, maybe because I’m a man. I don’t know. Women seem to be a little bit stronger.”
Gillespie is attributing the strength she has to the people she calls her rocks. Those rocks include her four children and five grandchildren. To keep her going, she’s also using her disease to educate others.
Gillespie replies, “Don’t put anything off.”
Gillespie says she had vision issues, noises in her ears and headaches, but didn’t see a doctor until she collapsed at work.
At her benefit she had pamphlets about the signs and symptoms of brain cancer. Her hope is that others will learn to take their health seriously so they won’t have to go through her same battle.
Gillespie will learn if she will be going through chemo therapy or do another round of radiation to decrease the size of her tumor on June 2nd.
The Bowers tell us for anyone that wasn’t able to come out to the benefit, donations for Gillespie can still be made at any M and T Bank in Maryland or Delaware through the “cancer benefit of Lori Gillespie” account.
